WC have there own licenced spectrum, this helps.
Using own licenced spectrum definitely helps, but how many customers can you cater for in one direction with one PoP ?
Cell phones are fairly commonplace, I would imagine most cellphone towers have generators? My point being that there is more than one way to kill a cat.
Yeah, but cellphone coverage is not really that great, it's okay, but more often than not, when I am on a cellphone, I end having to go outdoors for a better signal or at least move around. Batteries go flat at the wrong time, maybe I jinxed with cellphones.... However, not great in an emergency. The cellphone is a good idea to an extend, but there is a lot of "what ifs" in my view. I'm not trying to be the party pooper here, after all, I have been playing with this stuff, check out www.lindsay.wired.net.nz/projects/sip/ but when there is an essential service involved, I am in favour of using tried and proven methods.
Telecom sux, give the competition a go. God knows the government isn't helping in this area.
Have a look at www.llu.wired.net.nz - I agree with what you're saying, I can see why iHUG is providing this service, but at the end of the day I am not going to direct customers, friends, or whatever down a technology path that isn't all that crash hot - it won't do anyone a favour, in fact it will make Telecom look really good. If wireless was going really solve the local access issue and do a just as good if not better job than a wired local loop system, then the local loop unbundling proposal would have never been considered, in fact Telecom would have ditched the wired local loop system and gone wireless themselves.