Wireless internet service providers embrace fiber as they face do or die moment

Wireless internet service providers (WISPs) have hit a breaking point. With fiber players gaining steam and both public and private funding fueling overbuilds of their territories, the heads of several fixed wireless providers say that they don’t expect WISPs to survive beyond the next five to 10 years—at least not in their current form. WISP executives said they are up against rising construction costs, staffing struggles, spectrum questions, and the impending retirement of long-time CEOs. But all said a tidal wave of private and government broadband funding is the primary factor forcing their hand, pushing many to begin overbuilding their networks with fiber. By and large, officials have zeroed in on fiber as the technology of choice. Beyond the question of what technology is getting funding, there’s also the question of what areas are receiving money. Though WISPs have received federal dollars in the past for broadband buildouts, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently decided areas covered by WISPs with unlicensed spectrum will count as “unserved” for the purposes of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. That means competitors are poised to get government money to overbuild territory WISPs made the effort to cover when no one else would. While some WISPs plan to hang on as long as they can with wireless, Most larger WISPs will evolve into fiber-first internet service providers, or FFISPs, over the coming years.