Sucessor to Copper Fixed Network Might Increasingly be Wireless

It no longer is entirely clear whether an updated fiber-to-home fixed network is the logical replacement for an older all-copper fixed network, as crazy as that might seem. In fact, over time, mobile networks or fixed wireless are going to be reasonable product substitutes.

Part of the reason is new platform development that makes fixed wireless more capable. The other big change is a huge increase in the amount of both licensed and unlicensed spectrum available to support fixed and mobile access with bandwidth high enough to challenge optical fiber networks.

What matters is the usefulness of the access network and its capabilities, not its physical media. And huge changes are coming in the spectrrum area.

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is making available an extraordinary amount of new spectrum--including seven gigaHertz (7 GHz)  worth of unlicensed spectrum, in the millimeter wave bands, and a total of 11 GHz, including 3.85 GHz of licensed spectrum, in a first wave.

Keep in mind that the new allocations represent many times more spectrum than all other existing spectrum now available for mobile and wireless communications in the U.S. market. Just how much more depends on one’s assumptions about coding techniques and modulation.

But it is possible the new spectrum will represent an order of magnitude or two orders of magnitude more communications spectrum than presently is available for mobile and wireless communications purposes.

Consider that U.S. Wi-Fi spectrum is counted in the low hundreds of MHz, while mobile spectrum might be counted in the 500 MHz to 600 MHz range. Using just those two metrics, and not accounting for sophisticated modulation techniques, the new FCC spectrum represents, at minimum, about 30 times the amount of all Wi-Fi and mobile spectrum combined.

And that is before we take into account the modulation techniques. That means effective throughput is a multiple of the raw amount of spectrum. It isn’t hard to derive an estimate of two orders of magnitude more throughput, using the new millimeter wave spectrum.

So, as a practical matter (because the higher frequencies can carry much more data than lower frequencies), the new millimeter unlicensed spectrum arguably represents much more access spectrum than presently allocated for all other mobile, Wi-Fi and fixed wireless purposes.

Nor is that all. The Commission also adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which seeks comment on  rules adding another 18 GHz of spectrum encompassing eight additional high-frequency bands, as well as spectrum sharing for the 37 GHz to 37.6 GHz band.