Thursday, October 16, 2003
Point of Clarification -- SMART Letter #90
Arish Ali, a SMART Person, wrote:
What I meant by the justaposition of the $39 product vs. the $39 a month service is simply that the technology for faster bandwidth than the telco delivers is here today. And affordable. And simple enough that we can install it ourselves without going to Sonet school and ATM training. But local carriers are not bringing it to our home. So maybe the last mile costs 10 times what in-home technology does -- where do I send my check for $390???
Arish Ali then replied:
Did not understand your point - [in SMART Letter #90]Harvey Cohen, another SMART Person and a friend from the Bell Labs of yesteryear, wrote:"With Wi-Fi access points for $39.00 at Staples that provide network speeds ten times faster than telephone or cable company will give me for $39.00 *a*month*"
Can I really buy a Wi-Fi access point at Staples for $39? Can I take it home and use it to surf the Internet ten times faster than my current home cable service? In your passion, perhaps the message got a little garbled.Yes, I bought two Netgear 802.11b access points at Staples in August for US$39.00 after rebate. No it did not speed up my Internet surfing. As with all Internet performance, a bottleneck anywhere slows everything down. The local loop (or bus, in the case of cable) bottleneck still exists.
What I meant by the justaposition of the $39 product vs. the $39 a month service is simply that the technology for faster bandwidth than the telco delivers is here today. And affordable. And simple enough that we can install it ourselves without going to Sonet school and ATM training. But local carriers are not bringing it to our home. So maybe the last mile costs 10 times what in-home technology does -- where do I send my check for $390???
Arish Ali then replied:
I agree with the spirit of your answer, the LECs should be exploring alternatives and providing cheaper, faster broadband - and I will be happy to send my $390 check too if they can harness any variations/siblings of Wifi to provide me with decent broadband.
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