ryanchappell

Municipal WiFi

Cell Phones integrated with WiFi garage door openers, key less car and house entry

TV and Video portablity- Shouldn't I be able to watch a replay from my dvr on any TV, copy it to DVD, iPod, show it in my car, cell phone, etc?

The cost of Phones, Cell phones, home internet are artificially inflated by market barriers. Why should I pay $50 a month for 4 different connections. There should be one wireless broadband internet charge. $20-30 a month, then you subscibe to a IPTV package for $20, and carry an IP WiFi phone.

Why is none of this happening? Media cartels are blocking it!

db42499

I don't think you are looking at the big picture on all this.

Things like this cost $$$ for research and development and more $$$ to bring them to market. Market barriers exist because of the limits impose by companies trying to compete to stay in business.

In the late 90's investors were throwing dough at everything and we were flooded with innovations but then the dot com bust happened and a lot of people were left high and dry with worthless investments. Now those same investors are a little bit wary to invest in anything that is not a sure deal.

It sounds cheap to provide Internet for $20-30 but what about the cost of laying infrastructure, supporting the network, and upgrading. Core routers and switches are not cheap and often can run over hundreds of thousands of dollars. It takes a lot of subscribers and money to recoup these costs and then they have to budget upgrades to keep up-to-date equipment.

Municipal WiFi will most likely not be free or will be added as a tax. You and I might be ok with it but there are taxpayers who will throw a fit over it and block it at every level. But we live in a democracy and have to listen to their differences in opinion.

Anyways that is my 2¢ FWIW

ryanchappell

I think the cell phone companies are past the need to block capabilities just to stay in business. They are milking us bad!

If they allowed simple VoIP phones and just provided Internet, I think their balance sheet would be just fine.

Verizon won't even let you easily put your own media on a phone. A phone should interact with other things in your life. It would be a lot easier to do this if you didn't have to pay $50 for every wireless device.

We need Wireless internet as bad as we need air. We just don't realize it yet. You will see all kinds of uses come out of the wood work in cities that adopt muni-WiFi.