Broadband and Universal Access

Wireless or mobile broadband cannot hope to be a substitute or comprehensive alternative to fixed broadband

Interest in achieving universal access (UA) or even more ambitiously Universal Service (US) for broadband is widening and growing, including its incorporation in, or addition to existing Universal Service funding mechanisms. These mechanisms and goals were originally aimed at expanding telephone service.

The justification for setting or expanding the UA or US objective from narrowband to broadband access is based on the belief in, and evidence for the significant economic and social benefits that can now be generated by ensuring widespread access to broadband-based services, thanks to the internet and the development of powerful, inexpensive, interactive computing and entertainment devices.

Initiatives towards achieving universal broadband access, or even service, are spreading through Europe, at both national and European Union levels, as well as elsewhere. The most extreme version of this trend is found in Finland, where the government has passed legislation that will make broadband connectivity a fundamental right for every person in the country, at the same level as access to education or healthcare (or in the U.S. to guns).

On the other side of the world the Australian Government has announced a vary ambitious A$40 billion + plan to bring very fast broadband (100 Mbps) to 90 per cent of Australian homes, schools and businesses within eight years through FTTP (fiber-to-the premises).

The role that wireless can be expected to play in deploying broadband access affordably and universally is very different from and more limited than its role in expanding the coverage and affordability of telephone service. Intrinsically (the laws of physics and engineering) wireless access networks cannot match the capacities of fixed access. The performance metric to consider is Mbps/km2.  

Comparisons of the theoretical maximum speeds of future LTE networks of 100+ Mbps with those offered over FTTH (fiber to the home) are misleading, because this wireless capacity has to be shared between simultaneous users in a cell or an area whereas in fixed access network architectures very large capacities can be dedicated to individual connections. Although, as has already begun to occur in some countries, the number of mobile broadband customers may exceed, and even greatly, the number of fixed broadband customers, the bulk of broadband traffic will have to be carried over fixed access networks.

In short, broadband wireless access will surely be an essential complement to fixed broadband access, offering the inestimable distinctive capabilities of mobility and free-ranging nomadicity with continuous coverage throughout wide areas. But wireless or mobile broadband cannot hope to be a substitute or comprehensive alternative to fixed broadband to the same extent as mobile telephony can be to fixed telephony for a significant proportion of telephone subscribers.

This conclusion presents a long term challenge that is particularly acute for emerging economies which never developed significant fixed access networks for telephony. They will eventually have to modify an overwhelming emphasis on mobile access networks to deploy entirely new widespread fixed access infrastructure, based on fiber optics, if they are to enjoy all the benefits that use of broadband services and applications can provide.

Full Article: http://www.bmi-t.co.za/?q=content/broadband-and-universal-accessservice-–-not-wireless-alone

Broadband & universal access - discussion

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