Ericsson Sees 5G-Based Fixed Wireless Playing Big Part in Closing Digital Divide

“Fiber is going to be built in a lot of places, but it’s more or less a problem that you have to dig yourself out of,” Linder said. Some 69% of large commercial buildings are covered by fiber, but the penetration rate is only in the mid-teens for houses and smaller commercial buildings, he said. The penetration rate is unlikely to hit 50% by the end of the decade, he said. “It’s clear that we need a complement, something … that gets this done quicker,” he said. Fixed wireless means no need to dig to cover the last mile, or last few miles, he said.

Fixed wireless is a “big, important tool” for closing the divide, said John Yazlle, Ericsson head-fixed wireless access. In the past two years, the number of providers with a fixed-wireless offering has doubled worldwide, he said. “That growth has been across all regions around the globe,” he said. The number of devices and other gear is growing on an “ecosystem that has a very big global scale,” he said.

5G means higher connection speeds and makes fixed wireless more viable, Yazlle said. Fixed also makes it easier for carriers to monetize their investments in 5G, he said. “You can really have wireless fiber, or very fiber-like type of speeds on your fixed wireless offerings,” he said. Fixed wireless also offers consumers a choice beyond a single broadband provider in some markets, he said.

Ericsson estimates there are 90 million fixed wireless connections worldwide today, to grow to 230 million by 2027, about half of which will be 5G, Yazlle said.

Few Newport Utilities customers in Eastern Tennessee have access to high-speed broadband, said Chris Calhoun, vice president-operations and technology. “That really showed its face here” with the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. “We are the quintessential poster child for the digital divide” and that has “been the case for most of Appalachia for many years.” When schools closed, many children had to travel to find a hot spot, he said.

Fixed wireless is necessary to serve people in the mountains, often in isolated homes or with long driveways, Calhoun said. Fiber has its place but costs as much as $50,000/mile to install, he said. With fixed wireless, “terrain matters, propagation matters,” he said: “The one thing that fixed wireless doesn’t solve is line of sight. … You have to be innovative in where your hops are, where your different macro sites are, where your small cells are.”

Calhoun said his company is interested in the funding from the infrastructure bill. In Appalachia most people didn’t have electricity until the federal government launched the Tennessee Valley Authority, Calhoun said. “If the federal government didn’t do it, it probably would not have happened.” That’s “one of the areas where capitalism kind of fails,” he said.

Companies won’t move into a community without broadband, said Donna Johnson, senior vice president-marketing at equipment provider Cradlepoint. Rural communities can also benefit by attracting remote workers and need to be able to offer high-speed internet, she said. “If we strictly focus on homes and citizens and ignore the rest … we won’t really have communities that thrive,” she said. In areas like Appalachia, ISPs can’t reach all their businesses with just fiber, she said. “It really is an expensive proposition and not necessarily available right now,” she said: Buildout "can also be very slow.”

All the major carriers have fixed wireless offerings. T-Mobile advertised its 5G Home Internet service during the Super Bowl Sunday, boasting of “internet without BS.” On Wednesday, the carrier said it expanded the offering to parts of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.