No more MMDS fixed wireless networks?

Hello folks,

I heard today that Sprint is ready to capitulate to the FCC and reassign the
radio spectrum it occupies in most major markets (MMDS) to mobile use. I
guess they will be shutting off the Sprint Broadband Internet product in 30
days. Can anyone corroborate this?

Regards,
Christopher J. Wolff, VP, CIO
Broadband Laboratories, Inc.
http://www.bblabs.com
email:chris@bblabs.com
phone:520.622.4338 x234

If they actually did this, it is about time they finally woke up and smelled the coffee.

There is pretty much no way any wireless (or free space optical) technology is going to compete with wireline (including FTH) in an area where there is abundant infrastructure. The capacity in fixed wireless technologies even with the latest advances in technology including MIMO antenna arrays, CDMA etc is just not there. When you start talking mobile wireless data delivery, the price/performance ratio changes making wireless delivery of information profitable provided that you don't pay XXX billion dollars for bandwidth. Another alternative is using fixed wireless in areas without infrastructure including continents other than North America.

I once participated in a similar analysis for another broadband fixed wireless delivery network and the capacity to support enough subscribers such that the scheme broke even was simply unsupportable in the spectrum that was allocated for the system given the power and antenna size restrictions.

Bora Akyol

There are an awful lot of small ISP's out there doing fixed wireless and
making a bit of money at it. They're not doing MMDS, they're doing 802.11
and just getting it done. Better yet, they have no recurring loop costs
to contend with. That Nokia rooftop system looks pretty cool from where I
sit.

Curtis Maurand
System Administrator
lamere.net powered by Prexar

*** My opinions are not those of my employer. ***

<vijay>it does not scale</vijay>

Curtis Maurand <curtis@lamere.net> writes:

true enough, but the Cisco system 5.8GHz does.

Curtis

Oh, and yes, it might not scale, but I'd rather have 250 customers at $150
per month than 1 thousand at $40.00/month. Its much easier to support.
And I don't have to deal with Verizon for loops, etc.

Curtis