The possibility that a widespread buildout of municipal broadband networks (usually WiFi networks these days) will lead to a socially acceptable level of net neutrality seems to be gaining some traction. I wrote about this development in my March 24 post . Ron Sege, CEO of Tropos Networks, which makes equipment used in WiFi mesh networks, had an interesting article recently that made a similar point. He argued that rather than focusing solely on a new regulatory structure to assess whether companies are obeying a particular set of
neutrality rules, Congress should enact measures that aggressively
encourage additional facilities-based competition in the
delivery of broadband services. One of his tehcnologies of choice is, of course, municipal wireless.
He spoke at the Freedom to Connect conference on April 4, and made many of the same points. He also talked about the various municipal rollouts Tropos is involved in, particularly the St. Cloud, Florida and New Orleans projects. It was a provocative and thoughtful analysis of the state of play.
Dana Blankenhorn has a better summary of the F2C proceedings and Ron's talk here than I could ever provide, so I won't try.
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