US/ND-2: Paradigm Shifts
Paradigm Shifts
Jim Callahan (jcalhan@sundial.sundial.net)
Sun, 08 Sep 1996 00:28:39 -0700
WOW! In a classic understatement...
Marty Tennant wrote:
>
> I got this off an interesting USENET group and thought the group
> might like it.
. . .
>> i.e. the combination of no-licence, high performance, reasonable range
>> the last 20 miles), digital wireless, with school networking needs,
>> (and school districts are where people in this country live, rural or
>> urban) contains within it the seeds of 'community' networking,. . .
>> And since the FCC is confronted with the requirement of the '96
>> Telecom Act to make proposal/plans for insuring that advanced telecom
>> services are available to all citizens at affordable costs, with
>> special emphasis on schools (84,000 of em) and libraries (15,000) this
>> approach that we are revealing from our analysis (we are also visiting
>> communities which have already done it wirelessly, and evaluating
>> their cost benefit factors, technical reliability, and other factors
>> for our report.)
>>
>> You can follow what we are doing, examining, by accessing
>> http://wireless.oldcolo.com
>
> Dave Hughes dave@oldcolo.com
The
http://wireless.oldcolo.com
site has the results of some National Science Foundation (NSF) funded
research by some "Star Wars"(read their bios) researchers on using
low-power radio as a very high throughput medium over short distances
(ie. for our purposes, within a classroom, campus or district).
I highly recomend the articles linked at the bottom of the home page.
---
These authors push the argument to its most radical liberterian extremes
(no license, no auction spectrum allocation). My personal viewpoint is
that these authors at at the leading edge of a cascading series of
paradigm shifts (most of which are represented in the FCC filings
we have been reading).
I found it very hard to summarize an individual FCC filing because,
I keep trying to fit each filing into an overall pattern of filings
and the overall pattern I see keeps shifting like a kalidoscope.
This week, I see the overall pattern as comprised of:
o Existing "telephone companies", "local exchange carriers" (LECs)
who provide traditional "plain old telephone service" (POTS). These
companies like the "circularity" of the existing Universal Services
fund and would like to keep it that way. These companies want
to provide ISDN to schools, but they want to reap large subsidies
for doing so, in order to defend their expensive installed plant
and equipment against lower cost new entrants.
o Cellular Telephone companies who basically want to join the
LEC club. They expect to pay into the Universal Services Fund,
but they would like a piece of the action in terms of the payout
from the Universal Services Fund. [tangential comment, having
low-income customers use their "telecom vouchers" to purchasse
cell phone services, might be the 1990s equivalent of "welfare
Cadillacs" or buying steak on food stamps]
o Cable-TV companies. Find LEC or Internet Phone services to be
an interesting sidelines to fund their visionary huge bandwith
coaxial cable and fiber optic "500 channel" cable-TV systems. They feel
they have the better mousetrap and are wondering why the world isn't
beating a bigger, faster path to their doors. [I really will finish
my summary of the National Cable Television Associaton NCTA filing --
someday].
o PCS. The more radical off-spring of the cellular phone companies
who made big bids in the Personal Communications Services (PCS)
frequencies auction. They share the concerns of the cellular
companies, but are more interested in serving schools (and receiving
USF subsidies) because PCS technology is more suited to Internet
connections - than most of the conventional cellular technologies.
These are all big economic interests, who, may have company once
the venture capitalists begin funding the "radical wireless" people
identified at the beginning of this posting. Notice that the "radical
wireless" battle has been taking place at a different FCC Notice
of Proposed Rulemaking than the one we are studying.
---
IMPLICATIONS FOR SCHOOLS
My point is not "here's a nifty new technology, lets wait for it."
My point is that the "paradigm shifts" implicit in the new technologies
may enable us to shift the entire terms of debate concerning provision
of "Universal Services" to schools.
The current filings represent a discussion over the stale [from the
industry viewpoint, not the schools] redistribution of income represented
by the Universal Services Fund. The bottom line of most of the filings
(after some inter-industry jousting -- such as the cable-tv industry
arguing that the phone-companies' "benchmark costs" are too high) is that
most companies want to make sure they are eligible to receive the
Universal Service subsidies and to limit the services offered in order to
hold down the total revenue required by the program. This is arguing
over slices of the contribution and pay-out pies, while trying to
avoid expanding both pies too quickly.
SHIFTING THE TERMS OF THE DEBATE
As you may have guessed, this section is a lets expand the pie discussion
rather than haggling over the size of the slices. The key is the
possiblities opened up by the new entrants and new technologies.
Earlier in this e-mail discussion several people made modest proposals
to supplement school income by selling long-distance or internet access
services. There are much more lucrative possiblities involving the
schools bandwidth and real-estate.
1. The FCC could review the radio frequencies licensed to schools
districts over the years and see which licenses might be suitable
for Personal Communication Services (PCS). The FCC could offer
school districts with desirable frequencies the option of contributing
their frequencies to a national pool -- to be auctioned off like the
recent PCS auction. The new services would be technologically more
efficient than the old service maintained by the school system. So
hypothetically, a school system could get new cell phones for its
bus drivers and substancial cash -- for turning over existing
frequencies.
2. Another possiblity for schools is to lease land to cable-TV companies
for the equipment sheds that will be required to convert the signals
from fiber optics to cable. This might be most suitable for elementary
schools -- since they are closest to the neighboorhoods
3. Another possiblity for schools is to lease land to cell phone
and personal commmunications services (PCS) companies for towers.
A PCS company could offer to replace one of he towers that
supports the lights above the athletic fields.
Jim Callahan
JCalhan@Sundial.net
path to their door.