OT- Wireless Fiber

[dickiedawg]

I live in a Starkville neighborhood not serviced by fiber to the home. Now they’re rolling out “wireless fiber”- not nearly as fast (up to 100mbps) but fast enough and would save a little bit over what I’m paying MaxxSouth. Hopefully it will be more reliable than MaxxSouth, which is notoriously unreliable.

Does anyone know anything more about this or what I can expect? Or what the timeline is?

 

[aTotal360]

Who's the provider?

 

[ababyatemydingo]

It's legit. Get it if it's available. This will be the wave of the future for undeserved areas, and with net neutrality regulations being phased back, will create an explosion in providers. You will see a lot more WISPs pop up. Providing fixed wireless services. Just as reliable as wired infrastructure. This is one thing about the rolling back of net neutrality that will be a positive. More competition in this market. With net neutrality regulations, it was very costly for an independent to enter this market. There will be a lot of competition in that market in the near future.

 

[MedDawg]

If there's fiber how can it be wireless? If it's wireless why is there fiber?**

I live in a Starkville neighborhood not serviced by fiber to the home. Now they’re rolling out “wireless fiber”- not nearly as fast (up to 100mbps) but fast enough and would save a little bit over what I’m paying MaxxSouth. Hopefully it will be more reliable than MaxxSouth, which is notoriously unreliable.

Does anyone know anything more about this or what I can expect? Or what the timeline is?

nm

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Wired Fiber backhaul. Rolled out to customers through very high bandwidth AirFiber gear.

 

[drail14me]

I’m in Starkville and never heard of it. Who’s the provider? Where did you hear it?

 

[ababyatemydingo]

C spire home services is rolling it out. As is AT&T. AT&T isn't offering but around 8 Mbps, though.

 

[TheBigEDawg]

How will the roll back of net neutrality regs increase competition? I live in a rural area where Uverse is the only option, would love to have other choices.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

net neutrality regs made it very costly for competitors to enter the WISP market, with tons of red tape. The roll back eliminates that red tape and opens the market up for competitors to enter it more cost effectively

 

[SyonaraStanz]

Cspire will upgrade equipment on their towers and deliver the wireless via their cell phone data towers. I'm a current customer of a small wireless provider. For the most part, it's a good, reliable service. I expect Cspire's to be much better given their infrastructure.

 

[dickiedawg]

It’s CSpire. I was on the pre-registration for fiber when in was still in that phase, my neighborhood didn’t make the cut and they sent me an email this week about it.

I signed uo, and was just thinking about it today when my internet was in and out.

 

[Arthur2478]

I live in the reservoir area of Rankin County (Castlewoods) and I got a flyer in the mail last week letting me know it was available. It sounds great, but I’m kind of skeptical that it can actually deliver anywhere near 100mbps wirelessly. I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground to see how if goes for the early adopters.

 

[Dawg1976]

Dumb question. Is this the same as 5G wireless I have read about that is coming?

 

[dickiedawg]

Dingo you seem to be the answer man on the subject. So if you can speculate, can I expect reliability to improve (reduction in downtime)? What about heavy usage like multiple streams (or is that primarily a router issue?)

Also, who is the target market for 8mbps home internet? Competition for those with only satellite as an option? Dad has a cabin in Lowndes county where satellite is the only option and that’s a bad one.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

No. 5G will replace LTE/4G for mobile broadband. Supposed to use that spectrum much more efficiently. I haven't seen it demo'd though.

I've seen the AirFiber for home/business demo'd and in actual production. It's legit. And they are capable of delivering way more than 100 Mbps wirelessly. It works exactly like having a wired/fiber connection to your home/business. It's just wireless. This is where broadband is going if you live in the burbs or country. No, I don't work for c spire or AT&T. I'm just in IT, and have clients all throughout Mississippi and the southeast.

 

[Dawg1976]

Ok, but according to this article 5G will be an option for home internet in the future. Not just mobile if I read the article correctly.

http://www.cordcuttersnews.com/5g-internet-cord-cutters-care/

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Yes. It will be an option. But you asked if this was the same as 5G. And I answered your question. 5G will run on auctioned bandwidth spectrum. Also will run on different radio and antenna equipment than the home/business wireless internet options. . The AirFiber (or whatver the other providers call it) doesn't run on auctioned spectrum. 5G isn't here yet. The AirFiber options are here. AT&T calls it something else. It's just branding. If you know anything about networking, all they're doing is creating a wireless bridge between you and their towers. They already have fiber run to most all of their towers (the rest are supplied network access through microwave backhaul), so utilizing that excess bandwidth capacity for home/business users make sense. They'll also put the AirFiber equipment on water towers and taller buildings in areas where demand is there, but tower space isn't. C spire has actually been offering this for a few years. Megagate did, as well. Before they were bought by c spire.

 

[WilCoDawg]

Forgive my ignorance, but is this taking what Comcast does with their WiFi spots all over the place and essentially putting it on steroids where one would always be connected to WiFi (if within range of a tower like cellular service)?

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Not really. This will be a direct wireless bridge between their tower equipment and your home/business. You'll have a small antenna on the side of your house/business, and still have some equipment inside to act as your gateway. Then you distribute it throughout your home/business as you see fit with your internal network (switch, access point, etc...) Just as you do now with a wired connection. Just think of it as them running a long *** cat6 cable between their tower and your house. It's exactly the same. Except it's a wireless signal, instead of the cat6 cable.

 

[archdog]

What was holding them back before? Couldn't other companies just do exactly this regardless of bet neutrality being removed? Not really sure how it factors in.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

What was holding them back before? Couldn't other companies just do exactly this regardless of bet neutrality being removed? Not really sure how it factors in.

It's extremely complicated, but in a nutshell it's this...

Regulatory and compliance costs after 2014 FCC Net Neutrality regs stifled growth in that sector, as well as choked out competition from smaller companies wanting to lease fiber and setup WISPs (wireless internet service providers). Also, there's been lots of R&D recently in longer range radios and antennas, with higher bandwidth potential, using that bandwidth more efficiently. The technology is now coming into a price point that makes it feasible to use for rural broadband on a large scale. It's an extremely fast growing and evolving market and technology. The hope of ending the NN regs is that less regulatory and compliance costs will promote more competition, and if an ISP gets stupid and decides to screw over their customers by using a pricing model that customers don't like, there will be other providers for those customers to go to. And the free market will take over. What many don't realize is that Netflix, Google (Youtube), Hulu, Spotify, etc... already have fast pipes to the internet backbone. They are in a "peering agreement", which gives them direct access to very fast pipes. They won't be paying one dime more for their bandwidth than they already have been.

 

[docdawg]

Sneaky Fine Print

On their website promoting wireless fiber is the following disclaimer in small print.

* Customers that routinely are among a small percentage of users that utilize the highest amount of data may have their service deprioritized behind other customers during peak times or locations experiencing network congestion.

 

[Hugh's Burner Phone]

I would be very interested in this, but of course, like fiber, I am not in their service area for this in Starkville. What sucks is fiber comes within three miles of my house. I would love to cut the cord with Direct TV, but livnig out of the city limits really makes that hard.

 

[ababyatemydingo]

On their website promoting wireless fiber is the following disclaimer in small print.

* Customers that routinely are among a small percentage of users that utilize the highest amount of data may have their service deprioritized behind other customers during peak times or locations experiencing network congestion.

Yeah, bandwidth caps have been a pretty much industry-wide money grab for quite some time, now. Even during NN regs. Interestingly enough, C Spire's land fiber based gigabit services don't have any bandwidth caps at all.

 

[patdog]

It's just now in my neighborhood too. I looked into it and it doesn't look like it will save me much from what I'm paying Comcast so I'm probably just going to stay with what I've had for years.

 

[BiscuitEater]

How will the roll back of net neutrality regs increase competition? I live in a rural area where Uverse is the only option, would love to have other choices.

Without Net-neutrality, 5G is going to explode. Increased competition because 5G doesn't use fiber or cable to the house. It's being built from the ground up to support home users.

Read THIS

5G is being built for home Internet first. Verizon is spending a billion dollars to run new fiber lines to their towers to handle the new traffic. 5G is also built to better handle Internet usage and support more devices than 4G was built for.

Wireless executives have also made it clear that 5G is being built for the purpose of taking on cable and DSL in your home. Sources say that you should look for 5G to be competitive with your home Internet provider.

Of course, as more providers launch, the prices and packages will likely become more aggressive.

What is the next step with 5G?

Right now both the US Senate and the FCC have pushed bills and new rules—from expediting the review process to allowing cellphone providers to upgrade existing towers without the need for a new study—to speed up the rollout of 5G.

We are still looking at a 2020 date for most Americans but a few lucky ones may have 5G Internet in their town by the end of the year.

 

[HumpDawgy]

They need to call it something else. Its like saying "Wireless....Wire".

 

[ababyatemydingo]

Dingo you seem to be the answer man on the subject. So if you can speculate, can I expect reliability to improve (reduction in downtime)? What about heavy usage like multiple streams (or is that primarily a router issue?

Honestly, they SAY it'll be more reliable, simply by the fact that it won't be reliant so much on lines that can get cut or knocked down. But we all know that the proof will be in the pudding. Short answer...it's still too early to tell. I do know C Spire's home services (gigabit internet, etc...) are leaps and bounds better than their cell services at the moment. The multiple streams question will be a factor of your home network. 100 Mbps is more than enough bandwidth to handle 5 or 6 HD streams without buffering.

Also, who is the target market for 8mbps home internet? Competition for those with only satellite as an option? Dad has a cabin in Lowndes county where satellite is the only option and that’s a bad one.

You are correct on this point. It's AT&T's initial roll-out to rural areas who weren't getting jack, outside of crappy satellite. I suspect they'll increase their bandwidth offering to those areas in a short time, as competition increases in the market. I've also seen AT&T's in action, and it's no worse than DSL.

​

 

[ababyatemydingo]

5G is the wave of the future, for sure. And when it's nationwide, it has the potential to be life changing for a lot of services like software as a service, businesses, and regular users. There just won't be the competition in 5G, like their will be in AirFiber, etc..., so prices will be jacked way the hell up. The 5G spectrum is auctioned, making it more costly to enter that market. You have the huge companies like DishNetwork, who bought up crap tons of that spectrum a long time ago, and have just been sitting on it. AirFiber and the like will be much easier to bring to market, because that is unlicensed spectrum.

 

[TheBigEDawg]

Thanks for the link Biscuit, very informative.

 

[Philly Dawg]

If the explosion of competition you are expecting is coming from the development of 5G, I’m curious how that is supposed to work. Generally speaking, the bandwidth to provide cell service is granted through FCC licenses. If the backbone is fiber, that infrastructure is generally built out using eminent domain.

 

[MedDawg]

I'm holding out for 6G**

5G is the wave of the future, for sure. And when it's nationwide, it has the potential to be life changing for a lot of services like software as a service, businesses, and regular users. There just won't be the competition in 5G, like their will be in AirFiber, etc..., so prices will be jacked way the hell up. The 5G spectrum is auctioned, making it more costly to enter that market. You have the huge companies like DishNetwork, who bought up crap tons of that spectrum a long time ago, and have just been sitting on it. AirFiber and the like will be much easier to bring to market, because that is unlicensed spectrum.

nm

 

[patdog]

The 5G spectrum is auctioned, making it more costly to enter that market.

All new spectrum has been auctioned for the past 20 years.