For WiMAX and Wi-Fi operators, the broadband stimulus money represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But when they're going up against so many fixed-operator heavy hitters, can they make the case to non-techie types that wireless broadband is a viable option and worthy of government funding?
The people at the Department of Agriculture and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) have a wide array of options to choose from when deciding how to allot the cash for projects — and they’re not technologists, meaning that WiMAX is likely to be viewed as less proven than the more mainstream copper or fiber technologies. As is Wi-Fi, widely known as having failed in the municipal broadband biz the first time around.
But it’s not just perception that wireless companies will need to overcome. Those gaining Rural Utilities Service funding from the Department of Agriculture will be required to use RUS-approved equipment, very little of which is wireless broadband gear. And timelines are conspiring against new wireless equipment joining the list: a product must be in use in a trial project for six months before it can be approved.
Then there’s the issue of the heavy-hitting and well-funded RBOCs and cable MSOs, many of which are lobbying, intensively, for the stimulus money to circumvent providers entirely, instead to be spent on institutions directly, which can build their own networks.
In all, wireless providers have a lot on which to educate the grant-reviewers.
Why Wireless Works for Rural
Why wireless to serve the un- and underserved? It comes down to a classic equation: How much money is needed to bring broadband to how many houses, to how many people, and at what speed?
“The business case this funding is addressing is so challenging because these towns are so far spread out and sparsely populated, so to serve them takes a technology that allow a nice trade-off between good coverage and the speeds they’re looking for,” said Ashish Sharma, vice president of corporate market development at WiMAX vendor Alvarion Ltd., which has been very active in underserved markets worldwide like Africa and Eastern Europe and offers RUS-approved gear. “Cellular can’t play well because it is narrowband — excellent for voice but not enough capacity to efficiently provide broadband to residents sprinkled across big geographic areas.”
Sharma also notes that more concentrated towns will be a target for DSL and fiber, but wireless shines in the time-to-market category. “The Rural Utility Service program – a lot of the funding goes to fixed technologies, but those technologies are limited in terms of how they can scale,” he noted. “And they’re facing very stiff deadlines where they have to roll out networks very quickly. So I don’t foresee all the money going to fixed. It will be a mix of both.”
There’s also the question of sheer economics. “In true rural America there is no contest, because for every dollar spent on a wireless technology, you’d spend eight or 10 to deploy a wired equivalent,” said Dean Cubley, CEO at ERF Wireless, which uses a mix of Wi-Fi and WiMAX, licensed and unlicensed, to serve 150,000 square miles in New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana. More than 90 percent covers very rural settings. “The economics of the situation dictate wireless, because there’s not enough population density to justify the expenditure on cabling. Then too you’d need the funds to operate, maintain and service the network, and wireless is a much easier architecture with which to do that.”
