[CAnet - news] Can ISPs survive elimination of open access DSL?

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[I personally think elimination of open access DSL will eventually be a boon
to independent ISPs, but not without some pain,  and may even position them
to compete even more effectively with the incumbents as they will have to
invest in the newer technology such as fiber and perhaps wireless.  Some
excerpts from the original article -- BSA] 


http://www.isp-planet.com/business/2005/survival.html

Editorial: ISPs Can Survive

While the FCC seems determined to eliminate independent DSL, survival
strategies exist for ISPs willing and able to adapt. We identify three key
skills and two elements of local geography that could be vital to your
success.


Strategies for survival
ISPs are local businesses, and an ISP's success or failure will, we feel,
depend more upon local circumstances than business acumen. We see two
elements in local geography, and three ISP skill sets, that could determine
that ISP's success or failure in the near future.

   1. Access to fiber
   2. Public private partnerships
   3. Wireless RF skills
   4. Business integrator skills
   5. Current number of business customers

Access to fiber will, we think, be the most important determinant of an
ISP's ability to do business in the future. Fiber is available in places you
might not expect. Williamsport, Pa. is not the largest city in Pennsylvania,
but it has a great deal of fiber. Fiber has helped businesses as diverse as
Easystreet in Oregon and Conxx in rural Alleghany County, Md. Fiber is
particularly useful to fixed wireless providers who often find they can
deliver more bandwidth over the last mile than they can backhaul. It goes
without saying that the only reliable provider of fiber connectivity is a
non-RBOC provider, and ISPs will suffer as the RBOCs absorb AT&T and MCI.

Public-private partnerships provide opportunities, especially to local ISPs.
The story of Poplar Bluff, Mo.-based SEMO.net shows how a local ISP can work
with city government to ensure that a municipal project helps it. Timothy
Hicks, SEMO.net director of marketing, told us, "the municipal government
doesn't want to compete with taxpaying businesses." No city government wants
to be accused of competing with local business.

Wireless RF skills will help any ISP grow, giving it an alternative pipe to
the monopoly-controlled one. Commentators and practitioners have adopted
wireless precisely because it is an alternative to the RBOC (see for
example, David Isenberg's Wi-Fi Planet Conference & Expo keynote, Wi-Fi vs.
Telcos). Dave Hughes has argued that wireless is, in the long term, a much
cheaper way of connecting schools to the Internet and that the USF, by
preventing schools from going wireless, is an insidious RBOC subsidy. As the
Conxx story (above) shows, an independent ISP can work with local government
to connect the entire government, including schools, administrators, and
first responders, for far less than the RBOC. Fixed wireless broadband
providers may even be able to retain residential customers.




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those  of the CANARIE board or management.
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