[PLUG] Re: [PLUG-TALK] Cheap WiFi coming (?)

Kevin Scaldeferri kevin at scaldeferri.com
Tue Feb 6 18:10:41 UTC 2007


On Feb 4, 2007, at 5:35 PM, Denis Heidtmann wrote:

> Russell Senior wrote:
>>>>>>> "Larry" == Larry Brigman <larry.brigman at gmail.com> writes:
>> [I am moving this thread from plug-talk because the Meraki's run  
>> Linux.]
>> Mel> An article in NYTimes today about Meraki.
>> Mel> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/business/yourmoney/ 
>> 04digi.html?th&emc=th
>> Mel> Their website?
>> Mel> http://meraki.net/about/
> ...snip...
>
> Russell,
>
> This brings into focus a question I have had for some time.  Won't  
> the ISP's financial interests urge them to seek ways to limit multi- 
> family access?  My ISP gets $18/mo from me and from each of my  
> neighbors.  It is easy to see that $18/house goes away with these  
> schemes.
>
> This must have come up already.  Can you point to some discussions?

The analysis of the costs and benefits for the ISP are a little more  
complex.  Here's a couple issues:

1) ISPs charge for bandwidth.  There's only so many of your neighbors  
that are going to be able to use the connection before you want to  
pay for more bandwidth

2) Fewer subscribers means less equipment, less provisioning, less  
support, less power; lots of costs that go down for them.


-kevin



More information about the PLUG mailing list