Showing posts with label fixed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fixed. Show all posts
Saturday, May 6, 2017
It Has Taken a Couple of Decades but Fixed Wireless is Coming Back in a Big Way
It Has Taken a Couple of Decades but Fixed Wireless is Coming Back in a Big Way
Windstream plans to expand its fixed wireless access operations in 40 U.S. markets, using 39-GHz millimeter wave spectrum, presumably for backhaul and business customer access.
Ironically, Windstream in 2008 wrote down the value of its 39 GHz spectrum holdings to zero, as part of a sale of mobile and wireless assets to AT&T Mobility.
The collapse of a millimeter-wave access services business is not terribly unusual. Whole companies (Windstar and Teligent, for example) went bankrupt after trying to build an enterprise access business using millimeter wave technology, after the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
But times change. Platforms become more capable. Costs go down. And with coming 5G mobile networks embracing millimeter wave technology, what was a broken business model two decades ago might well become an essential underpinning of next generation networks, both mobile and fixed.
Google Fiber, Facebook, AT&T and Verizon are a few of the leading firms now developing or planning to use fixed wireless in a significant way for Internet access.
Cambridge Broadband Networks (CBNL) is providing the radios and and Straight Path Communications is supplying the spectrum licenses for the Windstream rollout.
The new technology will allow Windstream customers data speeds of up to 275 Mbps full duplex, and it also supplements Windstreams other fixed wireless access technologies that range in speed from 1 Mbps to 1 Gbps.
Windstream will deploy in seven existing markets where it currently offers fixed wireless access technology - Chicago, New York City, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Little Rock using equipment from CBNL and spectrum from Straight Path.
Windstream will also deploy CNBL equipment in 33 new markets where it will begin offering its fixed wireless technology. Those markets include Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Dallas, Detroit, Kansas City, Miami, Minneapolis,Nashville, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Richmond, San Antonio, Seattle and St. Louis.
Under the agreement, Windstream has the option of eventually expanding fixed wireless to an additional 32 markets where Straight Path owns 39 GHz spectrum.
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Friday, May 5, 2017
249 Billion Euros 277 Billion Needed to Deliver Fixed Network Gigabit in EU Study Suggests
249 Billion Euros 277 Billion Needed to Deliver Fixed Network Gigabit in EU Study Suggests
As you would guess, a study of gigabit Internet access costs, conducted by Analysys Mason for the European Community, suggests targeted enterprise connections cost the least of the fixed access alternatives, while ubiquitous fixed network gigabit networks cost most.
Ubiquitous 50-Mbps mobile access costs less than any fixed method, though not providing the same amount of bandwidth. That assessment could change over time.
Analysys Mason expects that by 2025, it will be possible for 1-Gbps peak speed to be provided from the macro cell network, with average speed around 180 Mbps.
The study authors note that other alternatives, including fixed wireless, cable TV technology and satellite will be capable of delivering gigabit speeds by 2025.
Still, Analysys Mason was asked to model only the “enterprise” deployment, mass market gigabit access (functionally limited to fiber to home or node) and mobile connectivity.
Fixed wireless, satellite and hybrid fiber coax were not modeled. Some of us might argue that might be reasonable for many of the European Community nations, if not necessarily the model that will develop on other regions.
source: European Commission
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