I'm Bob Artner from TechRepublic, and in a previous videowhiteboard, we talked about the use of mesh networks to provide city wirelessaccess, and now we're going to talk about the war about city wireless networksand about how there are different competing camps, both pro and con, the ideaof a city using mesh networks to provide Internet access to its own citizens.
So, I mentioned there's a war, and in most wars there's twocamps. There's the pro side and the con side. The first on the pro side wouldbe the cities themselves, and their argument goes something like this: "Look,we want to give wireless access to our cities. Cable companies and telecomproviders, they often don't want to come, they think our city isn't big enough,or the service could be lucrative enough, or the service is just pretty shoddy,so we're going to provide access to our citizens themselves, we're going toinstall mesh networks and we're going to provide access to our citizens, andwhat can possibly be wrong with that?"
Here's another group: hardware manufacturers. Companies likeIntel or Nortel, they provide chips and chipsets, and they actually would buildthe mesh networking equipment that cities would buy. Software companies,Microsoft, for example, as you might imagine, has devoted a lot of research tomesh networks, and they're very interested in any deployment which increasesthe use of software to provide mesh networking, and consumer groups, manyconsumer groups, not all, and their argument is, "look, we're being gougedby the cable companies and by the telecom providers, let's look to cities tothis at a low cost, we want better service, we want more reliableservice."
Who's on the other side? Well, the cable companies, for one.What's their argument? They say, "look, you provide a regulatoryenvironment, you control who can provide service to your citizens, and nowyou're going to turn around and compete with us and change the rules of thegame after we put up all this expense to provide service nationwide, that's notfair."
Who else? Well, the telecom companies who usually arebitterly opposed to anything the cable companies say, and in this case, whatthey say is "yeah, what do these guys say? "We're with them100%."
Okay. Who else? Well, there are some regulatory bodies thatare concerned, and what's their argument? They say, "you know, they dohave a point, a city that regulates these providers, now they're going to turnaround and compete with private enterprise? Wow, that seems a little shady inthe possibilities for corruption graft or just poor service, that's aproblem."
Who else? Well, we mentioned that there are consumer groupswho are pro; there are some consumer groups that are on the opposite side, andwhat's their fear? Their argument goes something like this, "Do I reallywant the city providing me with my wireless access, do I really think this cityis going to do a better job? Do I want the same people to take care of mylicense plates and my vehicle registration to be sending me a bill andproviding me service? See, I'm not sure they're going to do a good job in thelong run,"
So, you can see there are competing groups here, and they'rebitterly opposed to each other, but there is one group of people, a couple ofgroups actually, who don't really care who wins - Lawyers, and Lobbyists. Theydon't care as much who wins, their concern is that the battle drag on as longas possible, because it's lucrative for them, so that's the politics of theworld for City Wireless.
