Wireless ISP and WiMax in Maine Looking for an Angel Investor

"I copied their mission statement word for word! I cannot vocalize just how much this mission statement impacted me when I read it. That said, while this is not "our" mission statement, it is the fuel behind "WHY" we are in Maine and why we are going forward with an agressive strategy for rural Maine. It might as well be "ours". LS

The United States is in danger of losing its technological edge in the world marketplace, partly because of the painfully slow development of high-speed data networks and the infrastructure that supports them. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the U.S. recently ranked sixteenth among the nations of the world in broadband penetration, behind Korea, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Canada, Taiwan, Israel, Belgium, Finland, Japan, Norway, and Sweden, in that order.

The objective of the Maine-based Rural Broadband Initiative is to substantially expand the availability of affordable high-speed Internet access in rural areas. We believe that conventional market forces have been at work long enough to impel the mainline providers to accomplish this task, but they have not delivered. The reason most often cited is the lack of sufficient profit motive to expand in less densely populated areas. Federal and state officials have begun to sense the urgency of the situation, which is why President Bush has promised broadband for all Americans by 2007, and while more than half the nation’s governors (including our own Governor Baldacci) have made similar promises.

In spite of the attention paid to this issue recently, the growth of high-speed Internet appears to have ground to a halt at the water’s edge. In the name of short-term profitability, industry-leading providers have not brought service to the most of the lesser-populated areas of the nation despite promises to the contrary. They have done this while lobbying successfully against laws authorizing or protecting municipal networks, which are one of the effective grassroots responses to the broadband crisis. Thankfully, in Maine the existence of such networks are expressly authorized by the Legislature.

Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission issues rosy report after rosy report declaring that 90% of households that want broadband, have broadband—conveniently ignoring the hundreds of thousands of rural residents and business who want but cannot get high-speed data connectivity at any reasonable price. Meanwhile, the practical definition of “broadband” (which we would venture is Internet access fast and reliable enough to take advantage of both current and future web-based applications now and two years from the present), keeps vaulting ahead. A typical home user of a digital subscriber line (DSL) might be getting speeds of 2.75Mbps downstream and 768kbps upstream today and think it's fairly fast. But tomorrow, that same person will be left in the dust.

About Us and Them
The Rural Broadband Initiative was founded in 2003 by a committee of half a dozen citizens from the area of southern Frankln County, Maine.

At present, the Executive Director, Sam Elowitch, is serving on Maine’s statewide Broadband Access Infrastructure Board (BAIB) as an appointee of Governor John Balacci. Sam is also serving as Chair of the Subcommittee on Technology and Means of Delivery.

"We" at Alarius-Net are but a vehicle, of several that have been co-existing here in Maine for quite some time. The hard working ISPs and WISPs already in Maine share a common vision. We just happen to be inline with what the Governor and the State are focused on, while also focusing on residential and commercial implementations. Rural Broadband and Municipal deployments.

Laz Sanchez
Alarius-Net
407-756-7109 cell
laz.sanchez@yahoo.com
http://alarius-net.com

Oh, please tell us when you will find an investor. I'm curious what type of business he has and what capital he's gonna invest. Of course, only if these details aren't secret.
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