Fiber Critical; Fixed Wireless Also Has Role to Close Digital Divide
Experts debated the benefits of fiber versus fixed wireless at Fierce Technology’s virtual Digital Divide Summit Tuesday. Kevin Smith, vice president-technology, said Verizon is going big on 5G, but everything depends on fiber. “Only fiber can meet skyrocketing user demands for fast, efficient bandwidth while providing huge capacity and ultra-quick response times,” he said.
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Home broadband, smartphones, smart anything, “none of it could run without millions of miles” of fiber “crisscrossing the globe,” Smith said: “The hottest new wireless technologies and applications largely depend on fiber, including 5G, IP, big data, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, IoT, superfast mobile internet, edge networks and many more.” Verizon depends on its fiber network “to build 5G right,’ he said.
Others said fixed wireless doesn’t get enough focus. “The world is really well positioned right now to move to fixed wireless access,” said Dan Picker, chief technology officer at device maker Inseego. There are five times more mobile wireless than fixed connections in the U.S. and one of the reasons fixed hasn’t grown as fast as it probably should is because of the reliance on using the hotspot on smartphones, he said. “Where we've seen that break down is during the period of COVID when people have come to truly rely” on their phones, he said: “Mobile devices have not been designed for that purpose.”
State and local governments his company works with appear prepared for the $42.5 billion in broadband funding approved by Congress in the infrastructure bill, said Jim Patterson, chief strategy officer at rural fiber provider American Broadband. “I’m hopeful for it -- it’s a lot of money.” As everyone who lived through the broadband technology opportunities program 10 years ago knows, “things can go wrong,” he said.
Providers will use all the tools they have to offer broadband, Patterson said: “In rural you do anything you’ve got to do. We use a lot of satellites in Alaska because there’s not much fiber there.”
Fixed wireless has a role to play in buildout, said Wireless ISP Association President Claude Aiken. It’s difficult for government to predict “what kind of technology or what company or what service is going to be ascendant in the future,” he said. “Every community is different and is going to need different solutions." Aiken said he has spoken to some local officials who recognize if they just build a fiber network, those with low incomes won’t be able to afford the monthly costs: The bill allowed different tacks, “and we hope to see … that that gets reflected in some of the plans that the states bring forward to the Department of Commerce."
The supply chain is struggling to keep up with deployments, Aiken said. If companies focus solely on fiber, it potentially makes it easier to do fixed wireless, he said. “We have seen a little bit less of a constraint on the fixed wireless side … which kind of goes back to the point about flexibility,” he said: “If we’re trying to close the digital divide, let’s keep all solutions on the table.”
The approach can’t be “just fiber, or nothing,” said Prasad Kodaypak, Radisys technical solutions director. Some areas will require wireless because of topography, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the need for “access to affordable, high-speed internet everywhere, said Gautam Sheoran, Qualcomm Technologies vice president-product management. Wireless covers more areas than anything else, he said. 5G “basically provides a mechanism to provide wireless fiber everywhere you have a cellphone signal.”