Tom it is slow, but if enough people use it then web developers may have little choice but to pander to it. However, the device pickup will be an issue. With such a reverse incentive it’s possible that $200 devices are part of the plan, thus limiting the number of people on the network. Gonna take off the tin foil hat now.

What’s worse it that the provider is incented to have the free slow-speed network fail. The fine print says they only have to devote up to a quarter of the bandwidth to the free network IF there is demand which requires this much resource. If noone or almost noone uses the free network, the provider (M2Z for example) gets the spectrum free to use for their commercial service.

This is a perverse incentive to say the least. http://blog.tomevslin.com/2008/12/free-slow-censo.html

His main concern, like yours, is that 768kpbs is not enough for modern internet. I disagree there: Giving any kind of always-on broadband to someone who previously had none makes a huge difference. Access to email, IM, Craigslist, Google, Facebook, Linked-In, Ebay, and government services can change the life of those on the margins of society. (So I’m agreeing with John Daly somewhat.)

But I do have several other big concerns with M2Z.

1) M2Z is trying to draw the analogy to analog TV, i.e. it’s free, and family-friendly. I might accept the argument if they were pitching this as non-profit, similar to PBS, but M2Z is a business, with VC backers that want a return on their investment. The bigger flaw with that analogy is that the TV spectrum is granted to regional TV stations, rather than a single cross-country entity. A local station might go bankrupt, but the impact is minimal. M2Z wants the FCC to make a big gamble on a single company.

2) The risk is compounded because this is an unproven business model. Are people willing to buy a $200 device for unlimited wireless broadband? Maybe. But it’s far from a sure thing. Especially when their alternative – in urban areas, at least — is low-end DSL at $15/mo.

3) Their ad supported model (as I read it last September) is sketchy: it will use “…local geo-tagging for highly relevant search results. Even if you assume that they can do a better job of local results than, say, Google, why would I use their search engine rather than my current one? Are they going to lock me in somehow? Haven’t we learned our lessons about walled gardens?

4) Finally there’s the usual concerns with censorship – who decides what is decent?

I blogged about M2Z when their CEO was appearing on CNN and other news shows trying to gain public support. He was is playing the angle that their proposal was being defeated through undue influence of “Big Business” ISPs who don’t want a free alternative. I don’t really buy that angle. Overall, I’m just not left with a good feeling about this.

http://www.shaiberger.com/?p=20
(with video)

BTW, the best headline on this goes to The Inquirier which referring to both the free and censored nature of the service, sums thusly: “Internet without the money shot” :-)
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/631/1049631/fcc-wants-porn-free-free-web-access-for-all

Ramesh

Will people use free connectivity with constraints (speed, filtering)? Probably. As a founder of Junxion (early US market leader in flexible WWAN routers) I was repeatedly surprised to find that the majority of riders of several public transit agencies (Riverside, King County/Seattle, Capital Metro/Austin, Alameda County/East SFO, etc.) as well as private/corporate transit (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) were understanding – indeed they were grateful – wrt no-cost WiFi access with obvious constraints. Early on these deployments used EDGE or 1xRTT/EVDO Rev 0, often shared among 15-20+ riders at a time. Ultimately, for a surprising number of Junxion public/private transit customers the trade-off between deploying what was available “today” at a reasonable cost to everyone trumped more sophisticated/costly alternatives.

When it’s free, quality of service expectations can be malleable.