NEWS: FCC Paves Way For Free Wi-Fi

Great.....Advertisement-tracking and ads pushed in your face "family friendly" nationwide municipal internet.

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:39:06 -0500, DTC wrote in :

How else would you propose to pay for it?

Seems pretty clear that people in the USA would rather have ads than have to pay directly.

Just out of personal curiosity, on what do you base that last statement? I don't see any municipal internet system that has been successful using either ads or direct pay. Did I miss something?

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:56:52 -0400, Kurt Ullman wrote in :

Just out of personal curiosity, how is that relevant to what I wrote? Examples of ad-supported services abound, notably on the Internet. Whether or not "free" Wi-Fi is a viable proposition or not is another matter entirely. It's quite possible that free muni Wi-Fi isn't terribly attractive given all the free commercial Wi-Fi available.

Err... the subject talks about free WiFi, and then you said it was pretty clear that people would rather have ads than pay directly. It would seem to me, anyway, that the two were in some way connected. Thus, my inquiry as to why you thought free advertiser supported WiFi would work. Especially given your postings on WiFi stuff.

Sorta why I asked.

Well, I, for one, would be glad if such a system were deployed. I have a feeling that ad-based revenue models will not be the only model available. Free Wi-Fi could become very much like public toilets in the United States: having them is better than not, even though someone has to pay when a random stranger uses.

Also, there is an extremely large group of software/hardware applications not-yet-realized that free Wi-Fi would greatly accelerate. Companies like T-mobile and Verizon will hardly be able to keep up.

Our great-great-granchildren might look back at 2008 and think:

"How could they have not known that this is the way it would be?"

-Le Chaud Lapin-

Thanks for this mornings entertainment. Unless I'm reading this wrong, the FCC wants the cellular providers to supply free Wi-Fi with access points located at cell sites. That's why they ran the intererence study between AWS at 2.155 to 2.175Ghz and Wi-Fi at 2.4000 to 2.4835GHz. Are they seriously expecting to get decent Wi-Fi coverage with co-located access points at cell sites, some of which are on mountain tops?

Incidentally, in journalism, the metaphor "paves the way" implies a steam roller effect, where the proposed association is considered a sure thing.

I belive T-mobile complained that the TDD and FDD technologies could not co-exist on the 2.1GHz band. Perhaps a delaying tactic to try and prevent the deployment of the "Free Broadband Network" The FCC report is at

Nationalize the cellular providers and tax everyone to support the federal resultant monopoly. (Sorry, I couldn't resist).

Any more ads on the various web pages, and no room will be left for the content. There's a threshold, where people will start to complain, which establishes how much advertising is acceptable. That's how TV and radio established the advertising limits. Keep adding more advertising until the customers leave or complain. Then back down a notch. I don't like it, but it works.

Meanwhile, the traditional media isn't all that thrilled. Companies seem to have a finite amount of money to spend on advertising, which they distribute between print, tv, radio, signage, and internet based ads on desired effects. A national Wi-Fi infrastructure funded by ads will draw away much of the advertising revenue from the traditional markets.

There's also the not so minor consideration that advertisers expect a return on their investment. If they spend a dollar on ads, they expect perhaps five dollars in return. I'm trying to guess what it would take to support a national Wi-Fi system. Probably at least $1 billion per year would be about right. That implies that to break even (zero profit for the cellular provider), the $1 billion in advertising needs to generate perhaps $5 billion in increased spending. That might actually happen, but I rather doubt it. My numbers are probably wrong, but it's the principle of how advertising works that I wanted to emphasize.

Incidentally, Procter and Gamble spent just under $4.2 billion in advertising last year. GM spent about $3 billion in ads. The entire telecom industry spent $10.9 billion in ads. If some of that can be redirected to Wi-Fi, it might be possible to fund it.

Some general advertising numbers and trends:

Are mutually exclusive....

Remember BoPL?

And at a 356 Kbps FREE connection...

Let me think, CNN and Yahoo mail takes as long as three minutes to load at 22 Kbps, so it should take them only thirty seconds.

Impressive...NAUGHT!

Note that the title of the original article was: "FCC Paves Way For Free Wi-Fi" Last time I checked, Wi-Fi was on 2.4 and 5.7GHz. So much for InfoWeak.

Thanks for the URL. That sounds like what they're talking about. The FCC report is UMTS versus WiMax. Apparently it's not free Wi-Fi but free WiMax. That might actually work from various cell sites due to the increased power levels. Of course, everyone gets to buy yet another wireless card.

So, to get 20MHz more spectrum and a license, the FCC expects Sprint to become an ad agency and to open up their WiMax system for free use. It might be worth it, but I doubt it as their existing 2.5GHz licenses seem to be under utilized. First system is now up and running:

We'll soon see if anyone subscribes at $30/month for faster than cellular mobile data.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:00:33 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

The "free" Wi-Fi service by Anchor is a good example of how an ad-supported service works. Ads go in a header, not on pages.

The service is deployed all along Chestnut St in the San Francisco Marina district. Reportedly pretty popular, notwithstanding other free services in the area.

See Google.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:30:10 -0500, DTC wrote in :

That's not how it works. Suggest you actually try it before dissing it.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:41:54 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Now now -- same technology, just a different band.

That's NOT how it works??????

Lets see...I know for a fact that when I compare dial-up to my wireless to customers on site, we time CNN and Yahoo mail at almost three minutes.

I know for a fact that M2Z will be offering 384 Kbps download speeds, in spite of them disengenously claiming 512 (they combine the

Now....tell me how it doesn't work that way.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 18:45:50 -0500, DTC wrote in :

Dial-up isn't the topic.

That's broadband, not dial-up.

QED

Congratulations...you have successfully obfuscated the issue beyond sensible recovery.

So...to re-explain this in simple steps that even you should be able to understand:

My original point was the M2Z service would take thirty seconds to load CNN and I said it wasn't impressive.

YOU...for some reason you took the position it didn't work that way, without explaining how or what you were talking about.

Since you weren't clear on what you were talking about, I took two guesses on what you disagreed with. Either you were objecting to my comparison to dial-up or my understand of M2Z.