Comments on: Two more EarthLink deployments on hold http://www.muniwireless.com/2007/08/23/two-more-earthlink-deployments-on-hold/ Municipal wireless, citywide WiFi, WiMAX, broadband news Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:07:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 hourly 1 By: Eric Dynamic http://www.muniwireless.com/2007/08/23/two-more-earthlink-deployments-on-hold/comment-page-1/#comment-21818 Eric Dynamic Fri, 24 Aug 2007 18:16:47 +0000 http://muniwireless.sandboxdev.com/?p=6347#comment-21818 As Sprint found out trying to sell its 2.5GHz service from Mt. San Bruno, wireless is just not economical enough for the operator to maintain. They weren't recovering their cost of installation from a year's worth of fees, and so they quit selling the product. Imagine managing tens of thousands of subscriptions, 10% of which are acting up or generating trouble calls at all times. The technology, unfortunately, is simply not robust enough for the uses to which it's trying to be put. A GSM cell system would have filled SF's wireless bid spec, but no GSM providers were invited. Use the right wireless technology or don't bother - please. Now that Optical Fiber is so dramatically cheap, all the people pushing wifi have to catch up and retool - and many, including the SF Mayor, will still refuse to abandon wifi, out of ignorant stubbornness, or just ignorance. We want a service that works - well. Fiber will do that handsomely; wifi doesn't stand a chance of delivering uniform service, even to a single user. Of course companies that thought they were going to get rich from wifi are backing out: there's no confidence there anymore - but we knew that would happen far in advance. As Sprint found out trying to sell its 2.5GHz service from Mt. San Bruno, wireless is just not economical enough for the operator to maintain. They weren’t recovering their cost of installation from a year’s worth of fees, and so they quit selling the product. Imagine managing tens of thousands of subscriptions, 10% of which are acting up or generating trouble calls at all times. The technology, unfortunately, is simply not robust enough for the uses to which it’s trying to be put.

A GSM cell system would have filled SF’s wireless bid spec, but no GSM providers were invited. Use the right wireless technology or don’t bother – please. Now that Optical Fiber is so dramatically cheap, all the people pushing wifi have to catch up and retool – and many, including the SF Mayor, will still refuse to abandon wifi, out of ignorant stubbornness, or just ignorance.

We want a service that works – well. Fiber will do that handsomely; wifi doesn’t stand a chance of delivering uniform service, even to a single user. Of course companies that thought they were going to get rich from wifi are backing out: there’s no confidence there anymore – but we knew that would happen far in advance.

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