[wsfii-discuss] Press Release: guifi.net has reached the thousands!

Tue Oct 24 15:50:24 UTC 2006

Thanks Julian, we do fully share same points of view. I think this is 
never will an old thread, instead is one of the main topics.
Just let me add a few comments. I'm seeing quite often when talking 
about service providers over neutral.networks people do imagine we are 
talking about global big ISP. And really that's a part of the story, but 
not all.
We are experiencing that the openness facilitates a much varied 
ecosystem of small and medium enterprises, and that's a quite obvious 
opportunities. In fact their support is a key, although their 
investments are quite limited or localized to their interests, by 
aggregating them is a key of success.
By that I mean just network participants, such as farmers, or very 
likely any activity with dispersed but local branches or facilities, 
like small retailers etc, as well as the universe of service 
professionals and local companies who provide services to those SME as 
well to the citizens.
On neutral networks in some cases they can find better ROI and even 
better quality of service.
And this have to be taken instead of a competitive issue (neutral 
networks never can compete against anybody by its own nature), as a 
prove that help in enrich local business in a fair environment.
For going there, neutral networks have to gain some credibility, and 
very likely a current battle is there.

Ramon.

En/na Julian Priest ha escrit:
> On Mon, Oct 23, 2006 at 11:23:36PM +0200, Ramon Roca wrote:
>   
>> At wifi we decided to make a press release at the point we reach > 1.000 
>> thousands active nodes. That happened last Thursday.
>>     
>
> Congratulations Guifi!
>
>   
>> A LOT MORE THAN JUST A LIST OF ?HOTSPOTS?
>> guifi.net isn't just a list of access points. Is much more: Is a big 
>> neutral network where the nodes use to have stable wireless links 
>> between them and therefore creating an autonomous stable mesh network, 
>> either on urban areas or rural areas where in some cases there was no 
>> High-Speed internet access before.
>>     
>
> This neutral network aspect looks like a good one to publicise right
> now with the efforts in the US to fight for the net neutrality bill's
> passage into law and the http://savetheinternet.com campaign.
>
>   
>> AN OPEN AND NEUTRAL FREE NETWORK
>> In the current times where the original universal spirit of the internet 
>> is being mediated by private telecommunications operators, by having 
>> neutral networks in the last mile guifi.net is contributing to 
>> counterbalance the strict commercial driven interests. To provide 
>> warranty on this commitment guifi.net adopts the Wireless Commons License.
>>     
>
> The early wireless freenetworks always discussed that the creation of
> a neutral wireless access network was partly as a counter to potential
> control of the internet by the owners of the core network. The net
> neutrality fight in the US is showing that sadly this _was_ a real
> threat after all.
>
> The legaslitive fight in the US to enshrine net neutrality in law is a
> fantastic initiative, but the growth of municipal wireless and
> networks like guifi maybe shows that there is an effective
> practical/market approach as well.
>
> It seems to me that building net.neutral access networks where
> services (like internet access) are made available by third parties -
> provides two mechanisms for users to put pressure on backhaul
> providers to be net.neutral.
>
> The first is that the net.neutral network organises groups of users
> (aggregation).
>
> These groups can then have political and group purchasing power which
> creates a viable negotiating position with backhaul network owners (or
> perhaps even a basis for building backhaul networks).
>
> This is going to be the best way to operate where there is only one
> backhaul provider (or none).
>
> The second is that a net.neutral access network effectivley creates a
> competitive market for backhaul (and other) services across it. Users
> can the choose the services that have the properties they want,
> neutrality, high speed, low cost etc.
>
> This will work better where there is the possibility for multiple
> backhaul service providers.
>
> It seems pretty weird to me that municipal wireless had such a bad
> time with anti-competition law. I would have thought that providing
> net.neutral access networks provides precisely the possibility for a
> deep competitive market for services that competition law tries to
> establish with flawed measures based on duplicating infrastructure or
> artificial unbundling.
>
> .. appologies if this feels like an old thread ;)
>
> cheers
>
> /julian
>
>
>
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>
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