BroadBand Technlogy

Wireless Broadband is a technology, not a service. In other words, fixed wireless broadband technologies will provide a platform from which to provide services. In many cases, the platform and the services supplied are so closely tied together as to be synonymous, such as the case with coaxial cable technologies and the cable television industry.

This distinction is important in understanding the future of wireless broadband technologies within the local access industry. New competitors will employ wireless as they seek a cost-effective way to quickly enter markets and supply services to business customers. In this incarnation, wireless broadband will play a critical role in the development of local competition.

However, many of these competitors will also deploy fiber, resell incumbent services, and/or offer DSL services. In these instances, wireless broadband services may be among a portfolio of technologies used to reach the customer with broadband solutions. Wireless might be used where other technologies are incapable of reaching, may be used to cost effectively extend fiber services, or may be a market entry strategy.

Wireless broadband technologies are not new. They have been used as high-capacity links in long distance networks and for network backhaul for decades. However, wireless technologies are increasingly being deployed in the local loop to provide broadband access services across the last mile from the network to the customer premise. Several factors have combined to make it economically feasible to use wireless broadband technologies for local access:

• Quick to install for immediate service
• Scalable installation along with the number of customers
• Cost-effective installation
• Re-usable on other sites

The tremendous growth of mobile wireless services has driven the expansion of the wireless equipment industry both for base station equipment and for Microwave backhaul. Volume production and technological innovation have lowered the cost of equipment and opened the possibility for wider use of these technologies for fixed access services.

The same technology development that has fuelled the rise of ever more powerful computing platforms has enabled the cost-effective production of even more powerful wireless solutions. These advances are enabling wireless communications to achieve greater spectrum efficiency and provide better quality of service.

The rise in demand for broadband services has outstripped the speed with which wired technologies are being deployed.

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