Friday, May 29, 2009

Fixed Wireless Broadband Speeds Need Infrastructre, Not Hardware

The world cheered when a new, supposedly revolutionary piece of wireless broadband hardware was released in Barcelona this February at the GSMA Mobile World Congress. The new hardware, a PC-Only wireless modem, was introduced by Telstra and promised 21 Mbps peak connection speeds. So, why doesn't every retail store, c-store, and hospitality center in the world have one by now?

Probably because there simply isn't enough bandwidth served through the GSM to actually keep up with the modem's capability. If 21 Mbps were attainable for every wireless broadband user, even just for the business users, then we would have likely heard a lot more about this over the past 5 months, and probably seen competitors clamoring to compete. But that hasn't been the case.

Instead, focus has been on beefing up the infrastructure to meet the existing demands of an ever increasing user base of fixed wireless broadband. We recently reported on one such effort by Verizon who upped it's wireless broadband capacity in one suburban area, foregoing new terrestrial network construction.

When ZDNet tested Telstra's hardware in Australia (the only market it's available in at present), they experienced peak performance at 6 Mbps, and averages at only half that. One can't help but notice the word "theoretical" pasted all throughout their review, and a direct quote from Telstra's own material stating, "customers will experience typical user download speeds of 550Kbps – 8Mbps." That's quite a range. Why the gap between the peak experienced and the peak theorized? Simple. Network capacity. Joseph Hanlon stated it like this: "Theoretically the network is capable of delivering 21Mbps but only if you parked yourself immediately next to a base station, and accessed an uncongested network."

So, where does the wireless broadband industry need to turn next? New client-side hardware? No. We look forward to seeing major providers continue building and enhancing their infrastructure to meet increasing demands--both rural and urban. That is the only first step toward a wireless world.

Labels: Broadband, Fixed Wireless Broadband, Rural Broadband Access