RE: NLOS vendors in the greater Seattle area?

Casey, there are several theories or approaches for
quantitative value of information.  I.e. how much its worth,
in money.  For example the most popular in businesss is the
decision value, that is the difference between the profits of
the firm with information versus without, in terms of higher
revenue or lower costs.  For example if a marketer can generate
another layer of customer information that is supposed to generate
more sales, then the company might buy the system if it is
cheaper than that information.

The same principle applies to individuals; however economists
generally speak in terms of utility rather than money since
most of our wellbeing, in terms of Maslow's hierarchy is not
material or quantifiable in money.  Great diagrams out there
http://www.google.com/search?q=Maslow%27s+hierarchy&num=30

Anyway, since you and I and SWN are in the political economy
as well as the cultural and spiritual domain, the GDP of the US is around 
$13 trillion http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

If better information in the hands of consumers could give them
5% better utility in either their purchasing choices or their
decisions where to sell their time and labor, that would be
a material sum of money.   Dwarfing the cost of a complete
buildout of an owner operated broadband network.

The influence of advertising, news bias, and overt propaganda
of various sorts over networks operated by other people is
well documented.  So are the architectural decisions imposed
by Comcast, Qwest, Microsoft and all the other companies
in the information business.   Well,k of course these things
are so obvious and unchanging that they tend to become
background.  The entire information industry is not some kind
of a hobby.  It is not art.   It is a business that derives its
income from the management of information.  I mean, think
about it.   Does anybody want ANYBODY to be in that position
of controlling your information?!
Todd

At 01:47 PM 1/18/2006, you wrote:
>Todd,
>
>Any idea what the gross margins are in telecommunications?  For some
>reason, I keep thinking that they are extremely thin these days.  Would
>a network of people who were "in it for themselves" be able to
>financially support such infrastructure?  How about communities that
>heavily rely on the universal service fund?  Those $0.05/min calls are
>actually $5.00/min or more.
>
>While I am all for the construction of CWN's, I question if *the people*
>can throw out their telephones and actually own all the infrastructure
>and pay for it.  Frankly, paying $20 a month for a tie into a global
>communications network operated by someone who doesn't turn off the
>computer at night is not a bad deal for most.
>
>Although, as a Qwest DSL subscriber, I am very close to spending
>hundreds on my own infrastructure just to get away from their ToS from
>hell that rivals even comcast.  Only time will tell.. .
>
>
>
>________________________________
>
>         From: [email protected]
>[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Todd Boyle
>         Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 1:06 PM
>         To: SeattleWireless Talk List
>         Subject: RE: NLOS vendors in the greater Seattle area?
>
>
>         At 09:13 AM 1/18/2006, Casey Halverson wrote:
>         >Don't we all wish we could get 100mbit+ NLOS?  :)
>
>         To me the need to avoid endless rent-seeking behavior
>         by the providers has become a personal cause.  So has
>         the need to avoid the growing censorship or blocking of
>         types of content, protocols, etc and the growing snooping
>         and surveillance.     I really think the only solution in the
>         long run is owner-operated and controlled hardware,
>         because we have learned, whenever 3rd parties have a
>         role in your information infrastructure the moral temptation
>         to them is too great, and they start abusing the user,
>         exploiting their position.  In fact a competition and laissez
>         faire policy forces that outcome becaue whatever
>         advantage they do NOT exploit, some guy like Bill Gates
>         comes and exploits ALL of them to the maximum.
>
>         Perhaps most of you have also come to this conclusion,
>         the necessity of users to actually OWN the infrastructure.
>         If you are in the suburbs, at some point doesn't it make sense
>         to just lay our own 3rd fiber network?  We own our property
>         in the suburbs.   Once people "get the hang of it", they
>         might be willing to allow a Cooperative, to extend a
>         segment across their back fence in exchange for access
>         to whatever bandwidth is on that segment.
>
>         What's lacking is the same thing thats lacking from any
>         community wireless effort: agreement on a governance/usage
>         model, because you need that in order to design the
>         architecture..  i.e. what would be the range of identity or
>         privacy deliverables from the network.  I think you need
>         these for a community network regardless whether its
>         wireless or fiber.    The only thing I see, around the country
>         is people doing this within the municipal governments.
>         That *may* be jumping from the frying pan into the fire,
>         which they may live to regret someday.  The behavior of
>         city hall is so notorious, historically that some people
>         will categorically vote no on municipal owned broadband,
>
>         If you're in King County Library district ask your library
>boards
>         for content repositories to accompany the WiFi networks.
>         There we can upload television programming since nobody
>         has a PEG channel for our local content (except Seattle SCAN77)
>
>         TOdd.
>
>
>         At 09:13 AM 1/18/2006, Casey Halverson wrote:
>
>
>                 Don't we all wish we could get 100mbit+ NLOS?  :)
>
>                 Non-line of sight technologies are not going to get you
>over a couple
>                 megabits.  Even the Wimax forum admits that NLOS OFDM
>will maybe yield
>                 5mbps in the best of NLOS conditions.  Its not too hard
>to bounce off a
>                 few points to obtain end-to-end LOS within this area.
>However, this may
>                 prove to be more expensive than a leased line.
>
>                 If you are looking for a short range, high bandwidth
>solution, you may
>                 want to investigate metro ethernet or dark fiber within
>the Bellevue
>                 area.  Its inexpensive and fast --- we do layer 2
>point-to-point metro
>                 ethernet between a couple buildings in downtown
>bellevue.
>
>
>
>                 > -----Original Message-----
>                 > From: [email protected]
>                 > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
>Adam D. Morley
>                 > Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 11:01 PM
>                 > To: [email protected]
>                 > Subject: NLOS vendors in the greater Seattle area?
>                 >
>                 > Hi,
>                 >
>                 > I am interested in any vendors or consultants that
>have
>                 > experience with high-bandwidth (50-100mbit+),
>low-latency
>                 > (<20-30ms) NLOS products that can provide site-survey
>                 > capabilities in the Bellevue area.  If you are (or
>know of)
>                 > such a vendor, please drop me a mail off-list.  I have
>
>                 > funding for the site-survey, so it's not a freebie.
>                 >
>                 > Effectively, I would like to find a group that has
>worked
>                 > with these products before, and can evaluate the
>potential
>                 > for a point-to-point link for linking two locations
>together
>                 > with low-latency, high-bandwidth connections.  The
>distances
>                 > are quite short --- just a few miles, but the
>challenges are
>                 > ... numerous.  Preferably bridges, encryption, VLAN
>tunneling, etc.
>                 >
>                 > Thanks!
>                 >
>                 > --
>                 > adam
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