Fiber is to Wi-Fi as Airplane is to Bicycle

Thanks for the compliments! I hope I don’t appear anti-fiber. Fiber is clearly the appropriate technology for the next 20, 50, maybe 100 years, in the way that telephone wire has worked extremely well (with some upgrades) for well over 100 years. Fiber is the right way to go.

Some countries have chosen to make the investment to the home or apartment or whatever. Some companies have chosen to make that investment, too. But it’s clear in the US that ubiquitous FTTH isn’t going to happen soon, and possible never. This is partly because of our sprawling suburbs and still significant rural population. Partly because of the ancient infrastructure in dense cities that’s incredibly expensive to tamper with.

For those reasons, Wi-Fi has become the best worst solution for ensuring a faster-than-dial-up speed for a lot of cities. We’ll see how it pans out. I call it best worst because it’s clearly not even in the big book of ideal broadband technologies to residential customers. Broadband wireless (even unlicensed) with individual point-to-multipoint receivers would make a lot more sense, but probably be cost prohibitive at this point.

Wi-Fi is best-worst because there are 100m’s of adapters. Because the chips are cheap. Because it’s a standard that’s well supported. I see Wi-Fi as a cheap mobility solution with a stapled-on indoor possibility. Next-generation wireless like WiMax and other flavors are really the way to go, but it’s also clear that that’s a two-to-five-year timetable given regulatory issues (the right licensed spectrum being available) and production ramp-up to affordable end-user units and even the central base stations.

Any city or town that can figure out how to afford fiber in almost any form (a ring, a hub and spoke, FTTN, what have you) or that can figure out how to attract a private company to do a comprehensive install on their own dime or in partnership should do that. The argument against municipal fiber has principally been that it’s not a good use of government dollars because if there’s a viable model than private enterprise should do it. Private enterprise is spread a little thin in the telecom side these days, focused often on DSL, IPTV franchising deals, net neutrality, and mobile phones. So cities may need to step in with incentives or dollars.

I like the bicycle:airplane metaphor, but let me propose another one. It’s giant cargo containers versus private boats. You can pack a lot on a cargo container, but they’re expensive to operator, and ponderous to get started. But they dramatically increase the flow of goods while lowering the cost of delivery. You have to rebuild (as we have done) all the infrastructure in the world to make it work, though, which took decades. Private boats can’t carry much, but the startup costs are low, and the delivery more idiosyncratic.

Thanks again for the links and the analysis.

I should also note one more thing: Orlowski was speculating that fiber might kill municipal Wi-Fi. That doesn’t seem to be the tradeoff. Few cities are getting companies dying to come in and build FTTP or FTTN at no cost to the city and charge a very cheap rate to customers. (Milwaukie, Wisc., I believe is getting a fiber ring plus Wi-Fi, however.) Many cities are getting approached or getting responses to bids for capex/opex-free Wi-Fi networks which will be free or for fee to city residents, visitors, and city workers.

Another point is that fiber is well characterized technology with a predictable cost to install, predictable standards-based equipment vendors, and well-trained legions of fiber workers who know how to install it, maintain it, and run service on top of it. Wi-Fi on a metro-scale has none of that. It’s full of startup companies using incompatible backhaul technology and no profits. (Cisco released some gear, but it’s not a dominant force yet.)