A Mid-Band Spectrum Compromise For Rural Broadband: Wins All Around

There are two general approaches to expanding access to high-speed broadband in small towns and rural areas: with wires (fiber) and without (fixed wireless). Because trenching fiber is very costly in low-density areas, there is a growing recognition that “wireless fiber”–otherwise known as fixed wireless access–can provide broadband at high capacity (100/10 Mbps or better) at a fraction of the cost and also far more quickly.

That’s why the Wireless Future Project at New America’s Open Technology Institute, as part of the Broadband Access Coalition (BAC), filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last June to facilitate the sharing of spectrum to bring high-speed broadband access to rural Americans.  The coalition’s goal is to bring very high-capacity fixed wireless broadband services in tribal, rural, and suburban areas where consumer choice is either lacking or nonexistent, and where fiber-to-the-home deployments are neither cost-effective nor necessary to support gigabit broadband service.