Fixed-Wireless: A Method
For Broadband Internet Access

Remember how you got into the business? Recall the trials and tribulations of being a pioneer? Need to recapture the cowboy spirit that once charged your ISP? Then get to know fixed wireless technologies.

Part 1: Introduction to Fixed Wireless
Today, most Internet users have heard all about the benefits of broadband access—as long as its a DSL and Cable Modem connection. But how many Internet users have ever heard about fixed wireless access as an alternative?

Although fixed wireless access is starting to appear in more locations across the U.S. with great success, it's not getting as much of the media limelight as other broadband services.

Confused consumers
For the most part, very few users are aware that fixed wireless high-speed Internet access is an alternative to coax or copper connections. Those who have heard about fixed wireless access usually confuse it with one-way satellite access, like DirectPC. Even Radio Shack is currently offering high-speed wireless access though a common DSS-type dish in partnership with MSN.

Others erroneously lump fixed wireless systems in with cellular phone services featuring Internet-friendly functions, or wireless devices like Palm Pilots, or even mobile services and m-commerce!

Do you foresee forthcoming confusion in the consumer market segment over the term Wireless Internet? I sure do.

What I'm talking about is fixed wireless Internet access offered by local service providers as an alternative to copper- or cable-based high-speed access.

Fixed wireless does not require satellite feeds, a government license, or even local phone services. (Although your local telco may prove useful to a degree when augmenting your wireless network.)

Fixed wireless systems use a small, inexpensive microwave antenna that is attached to a radio at the customer premises. The Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) is pointed back to the ISPs Access Point (AP)—typically a tall building or radio tower—to create a Wireless Local Loop (WLL). As an unfamiliar, unknown, totally un-hyped form of broadband service, fixed wireless Internet access is distinctly different from the aforementioned wired services by its potential transport speed of and affordability—among other features.

For as little as a few thousand dollars and a piece of "vertical real estate," your ISP could offer fixed wireless high-speed Internet services to customers with adequate Line of Sight (LOS) as far as 20-miles away. However—as they say in all those too-good-to-be-true commercials—some restrictions may apply.

Whyfor wire-free?
So why fixed-wireless? In two words—No Bell! If you own or operate an established ISP business offering dial-up, ISDN, or even DSL services, fixed wireless access is the first opportunity you'll have to provide a service that doesn't put a telco between you and your customers!

Stop and think about that implication for a moment ... Those of you who have run an Ethernet cable next door to a neighbor know what I mean when it comes to offering a service outside of your telco. You can finally provide end-to-end service with none of the usual delays, long-term contractual commitments and expenses associated with connecting to a tariffed telecom firm.

Some of you may be thinking about starting a wireless-only ISP in your community—perhaps out of telco frustration or lack of quality broadband services in your particular market.

In some rural areas, fixed wireless may be your only non-satellite wire-free option for providing broadband access, because there's no cable system in town and your Central Office (CO) is many miles away.

So is fixed wireless a viable option to traditional telco services like T1, Frame Relay, or DSL? Can fixed wireless Internet access rival cable services?

We'll answers those questions and more for you next week when we take a look at exactly what is required to set up a fixed wireless system, and we figure out if fixed wireless is right for your ISP business.

Fixed-Wireless: A Method For Broadband Internet Access

Go to page 1: Intro to fixed wireless

Go to page 2: Fixed wireless Q&A >

Go to page 3: Local expertise >