WISPer to a scream

The most interesting competitive battle to deliver broadband services to customers may not be the one between telcos and cable TV companies. It also isn't the one between mobile carriers and people who don't think mobile broadband is viable.

The most interesting battle, and the most increasingly significant one, is the battle that pits telcos, cable providers and mobile carriers each against a competitor they may not fully respect — the wireless ISPs.

Whether or not the telcos and cable TV companies choose to recognize the fact, the WISPs are belying the sound of their own acronym by aggressively targeting markets that DSL and cable modem can't reach or have failed to reach so far. With the vision of the unwired community in mind, they are closely following a recipe that the cable TV companies used in the 1970s — win the municipal government, and you have won the market.

It's a recipe cable TV companies haven't really used with cable modems, and one that telcos never really thought about trying. In the mid- to late 1990s, several competitive local telcos and integrated access providers worked the angle to some success, until the businesses themselves failed to succeed.

Mobile carriers also probably don't fully see WISPs as a threat because, although both companies offer wireless-based access, mobile carriers view mobile as superior to something that is by definition fixed wireless. On a single-market basis, mobile data services based on EV-DO and EDGE are wireless data you can take with you anywhere in that market. But Wi-Fi access available from a WISP covering that same market, while not being wireless data you can take with you, could be wireless data everywhere you go.

What's the difference? The real difference is that the WISPs are busy covering whole markets with broadband, while the other types of providers are looking at coverage gaps.