WIRED on WIRELESS

[SeriousMoney]

nlightn: What's with this? Free WiMAX?

The WiMax Price Club http://www.wimaxpriceclub.com/
by Shelly Palmer, Thursday, Nov 3, 2005 10:30 AM EST

THEY'RE POPPING UP ALL OVER America--in backyards everywhere--it's the latest do-it-yourself craze, the WiMax Price Club. Want free Internet access for life? No problem. Just go to http://www.WiMaxPriceClub.com and order your tower kit online. When it arrives, get your building permit (if required by local zoning laws) and erect your new 80-foot antenna tower in your backyard or on your rooftop. Just plug in the included WiMax repeater and you'll be online in a jiffy! Imagine over 70 megabits up and down, FREE for life! Nothing else to buy; no salesman will call you. Offer void where prohibited. Your actual results may vary. Batteries not included. This is the first mutual Internet access club. It represents the total democratization of Internet access and the total disintermediation of the established telephone and cable infrastructures. The WiMax Price Club has purchased a bunch of dark fiber from a defunct CDN and lit it up with its own hardware. The Club's central offices are conveniently located very close to your home, so your tower and repeater are all that is needed to surf free and download at will. Share the connection with your friends; you can charge them a small override or just let them enjoy the fruits of your labor. Maybe they'll kick in a few bucks and help you purchase your tower and erect it. After all, free is free--but that doesn't mean you can't make a little money! Put up your own portal software, and you're the master of your 70 megabit domain and the 10-mile Area of Dominant Internet Access around your house.

Imagine free telephones using Skype, free movies and videos using BitTorrent, free surfing for all of your Wi-Fi-enabled devices--and pretty soon, free wireless VoIP handsets to replace your cell phones. This is the brave new world, and nothing can stop ordinary citizens from becoming part of the whole for the greater good. Free is very pro-consumer; it's time to take control of that nasty content bill. Why pay hundreds of dollars each month for cable television, landline telephones, old-fashioned broadband? Get connected to the only Internet that's for the people, by the people--the WiMax Price Club.

Do you think this is science fiction? It is nowhere near as far-fetched as it sounds. Yes, the new 802.16 (WiMax) specification is super exciting, unapproved and very misunderstood. But this type of technology and my hypothetical homegrown technological rebellion could easily happen. In fact, commercial versions will absolutely happen--well before 2009.

We are living in a world with several old (mostly mortgaged) infrastructures, and our very high monthly bills help pay down that debt. The cable systems and telephone companies have operated for the better part of the last three decades under the belief that we had nowhere else to go. Now, they are fighting among themselves: cable vs. satellite, satellite vs. telco, telco vs. cable--and the CE manufacturers have yet to weigh in. While these various factions duke it out, they will not be paying too much attention to Google, trying to give everyone in San Francisco free Internet access or a similar business plan like the WiMax Price Club. But, we do have choices. It may not be WiMax, it may not be an existing protocol or specification, but as soon as the prices get too insane, it will be something.

Internet access is a commodity, and the downward price pressure on it is extreme. When everyone has almost free wireless broadband Internet access, we are going to have an explosion of new technologies unlike any that has been seen since the beginning of the industrial age. You name the category, and there is a need for free two-way wireless connectivity: Medical, Education, Automotive, Telecom, Media, Entertainment, Manufacturing, Retail, the list is practically endless. When will the WiMax Price Club become a reality? As soon as you will it to happen. All you have to do is join. Visit the Web site (I created it) and get on the mailing list today!

Shelly Palmer is Managing Partner, Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC.

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