To paraphrase a quip, “fixed wireless is the network platform of the future, and always will be.” In the 1980s, fixed wireless was seen as the way to create competition for cable TV companies. Long story made short, it did not work out that way.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, fixed wireless was supposed to be the way data and voice specialists would compete against telcos in the small and mid-sized business market. It never happened on a widespread scale.
More recently, former fixed wireless spectrum was supposed to create new competition in the Internet access business. Clearwire tried, and then essentially abandoned the effort.
Now that spectrum is supposed to underpin some significant portion of the mobile business. We shall see.
Now Starry, a fixed wireless Internet access service, is among the latest examples of thinking that fixed wireless can bring major new competition to the Internet access business.
Starry plans to use non-line-of-sight millimeter wave technology to deliver the service. Neither of those concepts is new. Proponents have touted it for at least two decades.
Launching soon in Boston, we will see whether Starry has any more luck than any of its predecessors.
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