flynn23 wrote:
] the assumption that the expansion of fixed wireless could
] preclude FTTH deployment is probably erroneous.

Well, you've certainly hit the core of the apple here, but I don't think that this is an assumption. He does a fairly good job of explaining the costs associated with fiber deployment vs. fixed wireless, and he also makes reference to a clear 10 to 1 consumer preference for mobility over bandwidth in the telecomunications.

] For one, wireless will never have the capability or capacity
] of wireline communications.

True, but the thing is that people don't really USE the bandwidth they've got. The problem with broadband, as you know, and as he demonstrates, isn't that its not available, but that people aren't really using it. I happen to think that'll change, but I'm not seeing anything on the near term horizon that couldn't be offered over fixed wireless. Wireless is perfectly fine for music. Video, frankly, just isn't here yet, and if I could buy it I'd be happy to have it downloading in the background overnight. I don't need it live.

What is the application for all this bandwidth?

] Secondly, the economics of wireless deployment work against it
] just as much as a FTTH rollout. Even if you had 10mi radii
] fixed wireless POPs, you'd still have the issue that you need
] backhaul from each POP (almost requiring wireline
] transmission) and your infrastructure costs rise to meet the
] same dollars as a FTTH rollout.

Not if you are using an adhoc mesh routing system. Furthermore, putting 10 drops in ten houses costs 10 times more the putting one drop in for 10 houses. He demonstrates this clearly.

] Today and in the foreseeable
] future, there does not appear to be a wireless technology that
] will enable 10's of thousands of subscribers (the norm in a
] 10mi radius deployment),

Don't think 10 miles. Smaller cells, more bandwidth, less power, less spectrum. wifi...

My AP is not my bottleneck. If it was outside my house that would be just fine, at least from a service perspective. Security, on the otherhand, gets a hell of a lot harder...

Having said all of this, I was involved with a small wireless startup effort in San Francisco, and I learned, basically, that there is very little capital available for this kind of thing. That, more then anything else, may keep it from becoming a reality.

RE: The Many Paradoxes of Broadband | Andrew Odlyzko [PDF]