05.02.08

Sprint’s Xohm disadvantage in WiMax race

Posted in Money, Responses at 11:44 am by Brandon Wirtz

Sprint is coming in at a disadvantage in the race to get WiMax out, because they are not in the Triple Play business.  AT&T will role out WiMax first to places that are already on U-Verse.  This means they will be in places they are already fibre heavy.  Sprint doesn’t offer Television and Data Services so they are at a disadvantage not having Points of Presence in as many neighborhoods.

AT&T U-Verse, and Verizon’s Fios give them not only a set of customers to get addicted to fast Internet everywhere, but the foundation to build fast Internet everywhere.  Consolidating customers on to a single bill, solves multiple problems for the companies.

Single bill customers are only going to be data junkies at one location at a time.  You are likely home, or not, so you are self load balancing.  Where as a customer base that is on Comcast’s 50meg Cable Modem, leave the house and start sucking up WiMax Data.  This means Sprint has to have pipe enough for Peak times for "out of house" and Comcast has to have enough for in home peaks.  Where as AT&T or Verizon get to share pipe for both times allowing them to have less peaky bandwidth usage, which will save them big.

Single bill customers aren’t as likely to jump ship, or not pay a bill.  If you break a contract and get put in to collections on your phone it doesn’t really hit you until you go to buy a car, or a house, but if you don’t pay your phone bill and your TV and Internet go down as a result you are a lot more likely to pay the bill, rather than miss an episode of American Idol.

I agree with Om Malik,  selling backhaul bandwidth to Cellular providers who don’t have Pop’s in a given neighborhood will be big business, and selling shovels to gold diggers is always a safe bet.  But I think Sprint is the biggest player who is going to need this service, They just need to buy Comcast, or RCN or both, or the other way around.

As the TCP convergence happens, you are going to see that guy with the fattest pipe in the most places will win.  The thing that worries me is the digital divide between people who live in wired neighborhoods and those who don’t.   Soon the economic, and educational divide will widen between those who live in places that have the infrastructure and those who don’t.  (and I live in a place that doesn’t).

This is a response to:

4G Backhaul: A Problem for All?

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05.01.08

Breaking the Entrepreneurial Mold

Posted in Money, Responses at 5:16 pm by Brandon Wirtz

So it would seem that the people who were Entrepreneurs 10 years ago still are.

I still have my Field Guide to the Dot Com Yettie, which explained how all the 29 year old Entrepreneurs (Young Entrepreneurial Technocrats) were running things.  10 years later the entrepreneur age is 39.  Seems the old crowd is the new crowd. 

I’m 10 years to young, but I was 10 years too young last time, and with no college degree and 3000 miles from home I don’t fit the mold.

Dawn Kawamoto is insane…

So, if you’re going to attend college with the idea of starting a tech company later, consider an Ivy League school in a state where the cost of living is low because chances are good you’ll remain in the area upon graduating, and employees often are the greatest expense to operations. That’ll help with the profit margins, since going to an Ivy League school may mean your revenue will be higher.

Dawn, Ivy League Schools tend to be in New England, not the cheapest place to get tech workers, but more importantly, not where you are likely to have the best selection of Tech workers either.

Picking a place that is cheap often means a place where the education level is lower.  I don’t de-value my home town, the people are great, but you aren’t going to find a PHP programmer in Reading, MI, and you aren’t going to find a SQL Server Cluster Admin with load balancing experience in places with lower costs of living.

I would be much happier living back in Indianapolis, with my rent being 1/3 for a place twice the size.  But I would not be recruiting top tier employees, and I’d have much harder time finding VC’s.

This is a response to:

Study: A profile of the U.S. tech entrepreneur

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