[RTC List] More on Broadband Associates

[Mike]

    I think it's obvious that Broadband Associates is really just trying 
to get the state to buy them a high profit generating fiber run and the 
whole jazz about serving wireless customers is really just a smokescreen 
to get the project paid for out of someone else's pockets. Are you 
really saying that funding a project that costs about $35,000 _per 
potential subscriber_, is really a fair and just application of the CASF 
money? From my read here, and my formidable experience in wireless, I 
could punch a million holes in this idea. Broadband Associates IS NOT 
READY to be a wireless ISP, by virtue of the fact that they have no 
existing operation and especially not dealing with consumers. And, the 
required structure of the network necessary to deliver service to those 
5700 households would basically mean HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of wireless 
access points, almost all of them in 'off the grid' locations - meaning, 
solar power - and many, many, MANY backhauls and points of 
interconnection, and still the terrain there would be very hit or miss 
for any given potential subscriber. There is no way on this earth that 
this could be accomplished by itself in 11 months, I don't care who you 
think you are. And, are you seriously going to tell me these folks are 
going to dispatch techs 200 or more miles just to set up individual 
subscribers?!? Of course not.

    I think the CPUC did everyone a disservice by failing to get BA to 
provide exact details as to what and how and where this wireless would 
exist. We want to know what towers you have selected. what technology 
you have settled on, how many access points exactly and where they would 
be positioned, and otherwise prove to us that this wireless component is 
anything more than a disguise for the real purpose of the application, 
which is to serve CENIC alone. For about %10 of their proposal, I could 
build an access system that meets (or exceeds) their proposed service 
area and that doesn't need a fiber optic line, and I therefore think the 
CPUC should require that this big major expense component is justified 
as compared to other less costly media before just granting a blanket 
approval here.

    The challenge is that, at the end of the day, the people in the CPUC 
are just people, and we can't count on them to be technical experts or 
to ask the hard questions or do the reality check that proper 
administration of the public's money demands.

M