Until quite recently, though stand-alone fixed wireless networks have proven to have a positive business model for wireless internet service providers, in many cases, mobile networks have not been effective substitutes for fixed service to the same extent.
Neither average or peak mobile specs, nor the cost of using mobile data have been anywhere close to comparable to fixed network specs or prices per consumed megabyte.
In fact, fixed network data costs, on a cost-per-megabyte basis, routinely have been in the 20 times to 60 time lower scale than mobile data. Where fixed network data might cost cents per gigabyte, mobile data costs dollars per gigabyte.
Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) will prove an important break, in that regard, by offering access speeds more equivalent to fixed networks, at costs more equivalent as well.
In South Africa, internet service provider Afrihost has created LTE-A usage plans that feature a cost-per-gigabyte of about 18 cents per gigabyte.
For many accounts, that is comparable to the value of a fixed network connection.
Traditionally, mobile and fixed network access have been highly different in their consumption modes, so the new plans are important in that they move in the direction of unified plans with a “mobile” or “per device” character instead of a per-location character.
In some markets, for example, monthly usage allowances for a fixed internet access connection might be in the neighborhood of 300 gigabytes. The new Afrihost plans support that amount of usage, for the biggest usage plans, per device.
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