It stands to reason that most companies (and yes, I’m referring to the “evil telco cabal”) would be ticked off if someone used their existing infrastructure which they have developed and spent a boatload of money developing to be used by others. Simply put, while “wireless net neutrality” makes for excellent rhetoric, it’s unfair to those that had developed such a network.

Its true telecom oligopoly of US controls most of wireless spectrum. They are barrier to any innovation in wireless world. Think about it, how many internet application do we have access to vs how many wireless applications. Telecoms want complete control over their networks. To be fair to them, they spend billions building the network and they don’t want some hip kid on the block(Google) reap all the benefits in terms of Ad dollars. They have become just the bit carriers in the wireline world and they don’t want the same things to happen in wireless world. Only solution to this vicious circle is we need enough competition in wireless. I’m not talking about you watch my back, I’ll watch your back ‘competition’ we have going on between Verizon and AT&T. Reminds me of the way Big oil operated in early 20th century.

Instead of auctioning off 700Mhz spectrum to one company, we should let everyone provide wireless service in the same spectrum. If there is anything Wifi has taught us, its that there could be million access points in the same neighborhood they can all co-exist in harmony. Lets say we let anybody provide a Wifi like service on 700Mhz band, provided they pay some access fee to FCC. This could be something like Mobile Wimax service. Lets limit wireless signal strength to certain small distance(say less than a Kilometer). This limits the size of each cell. There could be multiple base stations from different providers overlapping with each other. Here is the other lesson from Wifi, as long as there is enough bandwidth, there is no such thing as one user stepping on other’s toe. Common, how often do you see your neighbor’s download interfering with yours? Secret is to make the cell sizes small enough so that there is enough bandwidth to go around for everyone. I know, I know, all you Telco folks are going to say what about QOS. Bullshit, where is the QOS in Wifi world? Don’t we all work fine. Bob metcafe invented the Ethernet decades ago. It has served us well. It has definitely taught us random access/exponential back off works just fine as long as there is enough bandwidth. No need for any fancy QOS.

Just a thought!

I just blogged about their moves in Japan, if anyone is interested:
http://analytica1st.com/analytica1st/2007/07/google-befriends-with-kddi-plans-global.html

There seem to be more words and decibels reserved to question Google and its motives, than to criticize the stance of the incumbent telcos, and raise public awareness of the telcos’ efforts to choke this new wireless channel.

A lot of people on the Internet are questioning and redoubting Google’s efforts vis-a-vis this wireless spectrum. That is a good thing in itself. But many people seem to be questioning and even attacking Google, simply because Google is Google, without actually comparing the merits of Google’s position against that of the incumbent telcos.

People are showing almost Stockholm-syndrome like behavior in questioning/attacking Google. It is as if the people are the hostages held captive by existing telco kidnappers, and Google is the law enforcement making efforts to free the hostages, and the people are falling all over themselves questioning and scrutinizing the actions of the law enforcement personnel, while ignoring the kidnappers and their crime!

Aren’t those the very rules that Google is lobbying for? Isn’t Google advocating the rules of openness which would ensure that the network wouldn’t be tilted in favor of anybody, not even Google itself? Wouldn’t that kind of openness make the network neutral and available to all eligible businesses?

This link shows that Cisco disagrees with Google (they sell a lot more gear to carriers), but that’s about it. I saw a reference suggesting that this blog was written by an attorney representing Cisco.

I respectfully disagree. Are you implying that a truly open wireless network is not impressive enough from the average person’s perspective? Why ever not??