Re: TECH: Wireless gets real

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Tue Jul 03 2001 - 16:14:25 MDT


Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Brian D Williams wrote:
> >
>
> > It's that considerable "sufficient investment in infrastructure"
> > that's the sticking point. The low ball figure I see is about 250
> > billion dollars. Whoever puts that up is going to want a
> > substantial return on investment, then of course there's
> > maintenance.
> >
>
> Huh? That figure is sufficient for several manned missions to
> Mars or for setting up an effective Solar Power Satellite
> alternative. What takes that kind of money to provide universal
> wireless connectivity?
>

I don't see why that number is hard to believe. There are something
like 100 million households in the US alone, how much would it cost
to get them universal access? $1000 per household in equipment and
labor? Actually installing fiber is more than that. But who knows, for
wireless you might be able to make it that cheap. That's $100 billion
dollars right there. Telecom is a sector of the economy that requires
a lot of capital...

-- 
Brian Atkins
Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/



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