MuniWireless

We’ve added another session to the agenda of the Freedom to Connect conference in Washington DC (March 30-31, 2009): “How to Get and Spend $7,200,000,000.00: What the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act or 2009 Means for Netheads.” This session will cover how to qualify for the Act’s $2.5 billion from Agriculture and $4.7 billion from Commerce. Disbursement begins in May. Most monies must be disbursed within 18 months. Local governments qualify, as do non-profits, coops, and other entities. Large telcos…

You didn’t really think Comcast would roll over and obey the FCC’s ruling forbidding them from blocking P2P applications, did you? Comcast rallied its legal troops and filed an appeal, which landed in the D.C. Circuit (whose reputation is pro-industry, anti-regulation). The Media Access Project has filed a petition asking the federal court to get the FCC to order Comcast to stop blocking P2P applications immediately. Let’s see what happens next.

In the meantime, the forces against municipal broadband are at…

The New York Times criticized Suffolk and Nassau counties’ decision to go with E-Path Communications to deploy a large Wi-Fi network in Long Island. The network is seriously delayed and no one really believes it will ever go live. The NYT says: “The lesson, which Mr. Levy [Suffolk County Executive] and others were warned about last year and ignored, is that public wi-fi needs public dollars, and that the investment is probably worth it.”

I have a problem with these black…

Pasadena has shelved its plans for a citywide Wi-Fi network after EarthLink pulled out of its contractual obligations to build one for the city. EarthLink has done the same to a number of other cities (and surprisingly I have not heard one of them suing EarthLink for breach of contract).

According to this article, the problem was the business model: The ventures failed because the business model for such public-private partnerships just doesn’t work, said Morley Winograd, executive director of the…

Viviane Reding, the European commissioner in charge of telecommunications will do everything she can to enforce functional (or structural) separation in the EU. According to this article in the NYT, the EU’s efforts to increase competition in the member states, by clamping down on the power of local telecom incumbents, has resulted in a dramatic rise in broadband penetration and in a few countries like France, lower prices and higher speeds. Here are a few excerpts from the article:

“We have…

Description: NextWLAN enables municipal Internet access through CityNet, a broadband provider-facilitated service and equipment bundle that provides subscription and/or transaction-based WiFi Internet access to residential communities, office/apartment building complexes, downtown business/shopping/entertainment districts or even entire cities. The company also offers gatekeeper and hotspot technology.

Contact Info: 408-356-8070 16400 Lark Ave., Suite 210, Los Gatos, CA 95032

Web address: www.nextwlan.com

Email address: info@nextwlan.com

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