Who's More Capable? Pitting Government Against Private Business (Cont'd)

No service exists in a vacuum, and all competitive services provide an impetus for other firms to strengthen service, lower prices, and provide a more favorable experience to the end user. What makes a municipal government different from any other SP? Nothing, says BellSouth spokesman Brent Fowler, provided the governmental entities play fair. “BellSouth welcomes competition and supports efforts to stimulate competition in the telecommunications marketplace. Such efforts, however, need to ensure competitive neutrality and must not foster undue advantage to a governmental entity by virtue of its position. Any laws, rules or regulations in place must apply equally to all players providing the same or similar services, products or equipment.”

Lee echoes this sentiment from SBC’s point-of-view, saying, “We believe the best option is to stimulate investment in broadband, not discourage it by pitting the government against private-sector businesses." Lee continues, "We are not actively opposing such measures, but we strongly believe they are risk-laden and potentially counter-productive to broadband development.” BellSouth asserts its own apprehensions about a governmental role in private industry, stating, “government providers should be required to maintain separate books of account and be prohibited from cross-subsidizing telecommunications services.”

The overall view of municipal networks is pretty well-defined it would seem, within different aspects of the telecom industry. The hardware providers want to get the data to the masses, no matter which SP gets it there. The SP’s want a level playing field, on which they seem confident in their ability to overcome the municipal networks. However, one chief element confounds speculation on the actual, long-term success of municipal wireless projects: most of the largest and most tech-savvy networks are brand new. We won’t know how fully these projects will embrace strong OSS support, efficient billing, streamlined subsidies, or other measures that improve QoS and lower revenue leakage until they have been given a chance to stretch their wings. Additionally, Municipal WiFi has found new support through other market sectors, as evidenced by Google’s recent move on WiFi in San Francisco.

Low-cost municipal wireless may still be considered a pipe dream by some, but numerous communities around the world are banking on it being a possibility. Things change, and I think Mr. Iacocca would agree that if the market doesn’t change with it, it’s anyone’s game.

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