Here (
Biggest Wi-Fi Cloud Is in Rural Oregon) is an example of what can be accomplished when greedy telephone companies are not in the picture.
They tried like hell, through their trained lap dog, Phil King, to outlaw municipal wireless in Texas, but were beaten back, for now. But one constant in life is the overweening greed of these companies, so they will be back. They always come back.
And the thing is, if they had won, they wouldn't be out there putting in wireless service. They just don't want anbody else doing it. That's how telcos do "innovation".
In the DFW area served by Southwestern Bell, if you wanted a DSL line before cable modems became common, all you would get from SWB was a runaround. They had no interest in doing residential DSL until the cable companies started getting market peneration.
Now they've bought themselves a law that gives them an advantage over the cable companies in distributing video, but if you are in an area that doesn't already have cable, don't look for them on your street. Serving areas that don't have cable doesn't advance their plan to put the cable companies out of business.
Posted on October 16, 2005 09:28 PM