[untog]

Yes, they're a thing. A shitty thing.

Wireless ISPs would immediately collapse if they had to serve the amount of Netflix traffic wired internet connections use in an evening. They simply aren't a viable alternative for the population at large.

[TDL]

You might want to check out Webpass, which is now owned by Google Fiber. They can and do deliver high speed internet. Webpass specifically targets dense population centers.

[himom]

Dense population centers are the easiest to cover and already have the most choices. Furthermore, Google Fiber has a history, like most Google municipal projects, of failing to finish and then languishing. They never finished deploying to Starbucks, and what was deployed was still slow. Also, Mountain View Google WiFi, a wireless repeater mesh, was horrible, useless and poorly maintained.

[untog]

> Webpass specifically targets dense population centers.

The solution nobody needs, effectively. It's already economically sound to run cable/fiber in dense population centers, because the number of customers you reach with every mile of new cabling is huge.

Don't get me wrong, Webpass is very cool. But it's point-to-point and requires you to build a lot of infrastructure on the top of buildings, which requires a lot of permissions, which isn't always easy to get. The wireless ISPs that do exist outside of urban areas have to use cellphone networks, and they are not ready for the amount of data transfer required. Yet.

[dawnbreez]

>Webpass specifically targets dense population centers. That, in itself, is the problem. Nobody competes in rural areas.