The latest Investing Matters Podcast episode featuring Jeremy Skillington, CEO of Poolbeg Pharma has just been released. Listen here.
>dsb, you miss my point. Yes of course FWA is the next best option after a terrestrial fibre-based service. I dont think i am missing the point, why do you think FWA is second best ? The technology is coming on leaps and bounds at the moment and the cost of deployment is a mere fraction of terrestrial fibre based services which quite frankly, are totally uneconomical in a lot of situations without government subsidy. Like i said in a previous post, Google have realised this hence stopping their fibre rollout and concentrating on FWA. >Chesh, you're also mistaken. At the lower frequency level of the three current bands used (800MHz), 4G signals >propagate a long way and also penetrate well. The same should be true of the even lower 700MHz mandated 5G >band, but we're several years away from finding out if that's the actual case. Hmm, not mistaken exactly, the problem with these lower frequencies is although they do penetrate well, the signals do bounce about and potentially go further, the main transmitters have to rebuild the received signal and put it back in the right order. This puts one hell of a strain on the processing of the data and as such reduces capacity across the board on that sector, and capacity is what matters here. This is why all FWA operators and Mobile operators are moving more towards "small cell" network designs, less distance, less obstacles, less potentially connected end users on a cell = higher capacity. Im afraid this is why your statement doesn't really hold water in the real world. As you rightly pointed out though, you are several years from finding this out. In regards to the Capex investment required for FWA, i am fairly expert in that as i personally started a company some 20 years ago doing exactly this. The Business model works well and although we also do a lot of fibre connections on new build estates, it has nowhere near the payback or margin of FWA. Regards Darren
I think 4G will only ever be a worry for wireless if the mobile operators start offering unlimited data and drop their pricing, both of which are fairly unlikely. In regards to expanding the network from the core, these days thats easy. We recently has demand from Devon, ( our network is mainly Kent and London ) lots of users on 4g. We deployed a network inside a month, the longest part was waiting for Openreach to deliver the fibre to feed it back to our core.
Everyone is worried about the Satellite churn to 4g/5g. If you look at what SAT/BBB are actually doing, with the acquisition of Quickline who also acquired some smaller WISP's first, they are building quite a substantial WiMax class network, this is cheaper to deploy than fibre and can potentially offer ample speed / latency for most requirements. The technology is coming on so quickly at the moment, I have actually deployed wireless links capable of 2.5g ! Even google have come to realise a wireless future is viable and less expensive to roll out than fibre to the premises. https://www.wired.com/2017/02/google-fiber-restructure/
I think although Satellite may have a use for IoT, it will be really hard to compete with the likes of Vodafone who offer really long deals for no money. The data sent is tiny hence no big deal for the mobile operators. Its highly possible that the likes of LoraWan will take part of the market also, there is currently quite a few bases installed across the UK. The things network is also worth a look at. https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/country/united-kingdom/