[Cu-wireless] Cometa article in the NY Times (was PLEASE READ:)

[by way of Illustrious niteshad <niteshad at whopper.de>]

(Caveat: I have not yet read all of my email today, so some of the points I
make may have been discussed already...)

I would like to comment on both the article in the New York Times, and
Sascha's "two year" exhortation.  A close reading of the article indicates that
Cometa hopes to be _finished_ with their initial network roll-out by 2004. 
This most likely means that they will have their 20,000 access point
network in the 50 largest metropolises completed by that time.  Read another way:
Cometa's network rollout has probably already started; the clock is ticking
for us.

That being said, I think that it will probably take longer than two years
for Cometa to come to CU, as we're not likely in that "50 largest US cities"
list.  In fact, by the time that Cometa comes to town, I'd expect that
Cometa will be well matched by the local forces of CU-wireless and Volo.net. 
While Intel, AT&T and IBM may be trying to perpetuate a "wireless landgrab,"
this is a dubious assertion at best.  For example, Prairienet was started in
1993, when no local for-profit ISPs existed, and the national options were a
nascent AOL, Compuserve, GEnie, etc.  In 1995, Shouting Ground opened its
doors, starting the local for-profit ISP explosion (most of which is now
consolidated into eGix).  Nearly a decade later, Prairienet is still in
existence, despite all of its competition in the Corporate Sector.  

Prairienet's case is also instructive in another, more pressing regard. 
Prairienet, the local ISPs, and the national ISPs, all essentially shared the
local phone network over which their last mile connections were made. 
Likewise, if Cometa is using 2.4GHz 802.11 (a fact which is hinted at by their
use of the term WiFi, which to my knowledge is not necessarily used to
describe 5 GHz 802.11a) they will be sharing the medium with CU-wireless,
Volo.net, Sky Networks,  Prairieinet.net and the barbarian horde of local WLAN
access points that Stephane is ferreting out.  If Cometa causes anyone else
interference, my understanding is that they will be in blatant violation of Part
15.  

Without knowing Cometa's pricing structure, and despite the fact that they
expect to have other ISPs as local resellers there _will_ be a pricing
structure, or the details of their business plan, I rather expect them to fail.