Saving The Bells' Broadband Bacon With Fixed Wireless?
As the Baby Bells realize they’re losing the broadband war to cable companies that are routinely beating out DSL offerings, they’re turning their attention (once again) to fixed wireless broadband offerings. Despite past (expensive and dramatic) failures of the technology, all of the Baby Bells, with the exception of SBC, are at least running trials of fixed wireless offerings, and hoping that it will give them the boost they need to take back the broadband world from the cable companies. I’ve heard these stories before. I don’t deny that fixed wireless technology has potential and the technology has gotten much better, but I want to see it working on a widescale basis before I’m convinced that it’s going to unseat cable (or even DSL) as the preferred connection choice of many consumers. There’s plenty of evidence that it works in limited engagements, and I want to believe that it’ll work on a grander scale, but there’s been too much hype in the past to just accept these claims at face value.
