That's pretty funny. Your last line, I mean: "Even the incumbents sold out to the incumbents. And here we are."
I was reminded by your message about how the regs seemingly (if not in fact) conspired with the incumbents, for all of the years you accounted for, to constrain alternative forms of wireless communications, conceding only in a scant few areas, albeit where monopolists already had a hand-up in the process, or in some very limited "pioneering" types of spectrum awards that were granted in support of multimedia distribution innovations.
Cellularvision, in particular, which was granted its pioneer license during the early Nineties, comes to mind here. A quick search of Cellularvision reveals how even its pioneering status didn't stop the incumbents from setting their sights on the company for co-opting it. Witness:
findarticles.com
BTW, there's no entry for Cellularvision in Wikipedia yet, which is a telling message, itself. I should get my netosciate & friend Shant on this immediately. Shant Hovnanian, president of Speedus (the name that Cellularvision later assumed), I should add, was at the helm of the original launch when Cellularvision began serving homes in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn during its pilot phase. The following NY Times article from 1995 sheds a good deal of light on the competitive landscape of wireless communications during the era:
F.C.C. Proposes Dual Use For One Part of Airwaves
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: Friday, July 14, 1995
nytimes.com
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While there currently exist some latter day alternatives to those earlier "adventurous" approaches, they're mainly in the ISM bands or are also packaged under lotteries, as we've spent a sufficient amount of time discussing during the recent past, or they are silo'ed under a proprietary design under a single vendor's control.
Your earlier point was well taken, incidentally, concerning my opaqueness of style in presenting one of my main points -- although, if one takes the time to read it enough times and tries really really hard, it actually begins to make perfect sense. Also, as the creator and moderator of this board, isn't it one of your primary functions to catch this sort of thing before the edit timer runs out?
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