Community Broadband Bits

Webpass and Its Fixed Wireless Seek Fix for Landlord Abuses - Community Broadband Bits Episode 197


Listen Later

San Francisco is one of the rare cities that has multiple high quality ISPs competing for market share, though the vast majority of people still seem to be stuck choosing only between Comcast and AT&T. This week, we talk to a rising ISP, Webpass, about their success and challenges in expanding their model. Charles Barr is the President of Webpass and Lauren Saine is a policy advisor - both join us for episode 197 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. We discuss the Webpass model, which uses fixed wireless and fiber to serve high density apartment buildings where they are allowed in by the landlord. Unfortunately, they have been locked out of many of these buildings and are looking to the city of San Francisco to adopt better policies to ensure a single provider like AT&T cannot monopolize the building. Though the FCC has made exclusive arrangement unenforceable, the big providers are still finding ways to lock out competition. We also talk a little about the role of fiber and fixed wireless technologies, chokepoints more generally, and why Webpass is so sure it could succeed if residents were all able to to choose the ISP they wanted. Read the transcript from this show here. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show - please e-mail us or leave a comment below. This show is 27 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed. You can download this mp3 file directly from here. Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player." Community Broadband Bits Episode 197 - Charles Barr, President, and Lauren Saine, Policy Advisor, of Webpass, a growing ISP
...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Community Broadband BitsBy Institute for Local Self-Reliance

  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9

4.9

28 ratings


More shows like Community Broadband Bits

View all
Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

Hidden Brain

43,587 Listeners

WSJ Tech News Briefing by The Wall Street Journal

WSJ Tech News Briefing

1,656 Listeners

Building Local Power by Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Building Local Power

95 Listeners

Local Energy Rules by Local Energy Rules

Local Energy Rules

48 Listeners

Pod Save America by Pod Save America

Pod Save America

87,985 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

113,290 Listeners

Up First from NPR by NPR

Up First from NPR

56,909 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,598 Listeners

On with Kara Swisher by Vox Media

On with Kara Swisher

3,538 Listeners