Broadband Technologies

Broadband Technologies

Submitted by Grace Tepper on Fri, 09/09/2022 - 12:50

There are six ways Americans currently access the internet plus two technologies in development. Before we begin, it is important to note that even if you have Wi-Fi in your home, you probably still have a fixed, wired connection. There is an important difference between Wi-Fi and your cell phone, which we see below.

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is the most common type of connection in rural America. This is the connection provided by a traditional telephone company like AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Windstream, or Frontier. While relatively ubiquitous, a DSL connection struggles with speed and network congestion. It has a median download and upload speed of 10/1, and the more people who use the network, the slower it will get. More than this, the signal degrades after about 3 miles, so the further away you live from an access point, the slower your connection will be.

Cable is the most prominent broadband technology in urban communities, along with most towns, and county seats. A cable broadband connection is provided by a traditional company like Comcast (Xfinity), Charter, or Cox and is available to 88.2% of American households. It uses a coaxial cable to connect you to the internet. The benefit of cable is that it is pretty fast (a median of 400/20). The problems are that it is only available in dense areas, and it suffers from network congestion (the more people online at the same time, the slower everyone’s service will be).

Fiber is considered the “gold-standard” of broadband connections. It is incredibly fast (1000/1000 or 1gigabit per second up/1 gigabit per second down). A fiber-optic cable is a glass filament that transmits data through light pulses. Fiber can be provided by any company, large and small, including AT&T and Verizon (Fios), and Ting. Many telephone and electric cooperatives are rolling out fiber to rural America. Fiber can handle a near unlimited amount of data and users, but the problem is that it is expensive to lay down, and, as such, many companies do not want to invest in its deployment without a guaranteed return on investment – something that is difficult to achieve in rural America.

Fixed wireless, provided by a wireless internet service provider (WISP), is an internet connection that originates at a tower that transmits connectivity to the user using radio waves. Often times, the tower itself is connected to a network (or another tower) using a fiber or DSL wire, but sometimes through a microwave transmission. Fixed wireless has proven beneficial for rural and remote America because one tower can transmit a signal as far as 10 miles. WISPs include Wisper, Rise, King Street, and Agile. Some WISPs, like MonkeyBrains in San Francisco, even operate in major cities.  Many ISPs are using fixed wireless as an interim solution before complete fiber-to-the-home deployment because a fiber optic cable can be connected to a tower and the signal transmitted wirelessly. The drawbacks of fixed wireless include potentially slower service, the need for line-of-sight, network congestion, signal degradation during inclement weather, and equipment costs.

Satellite internet, provided by either ViaSat or Hughes, is available to roughly 99% of the American population. Many in rural America subscribe to satellite internet. The problem is that satellite connections are notoriously slow (around 2/1.3), and are plagued by high prices, low data caps (meaning that you cannot use a lot of data-intensive applications), high latency (meaning a lot of lag between transmission and reception) and weather disruptionsMany have argued that satellite should not be included in the list of viable broadband technologies but the FCC has disagreed.

Mobile broadband is available to the 81% of the population who own a smartphone. This service is provided by any of the mobile providers such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile/Sprint, US Cellular, Boost, etc. Only 71% of rural Americans have a smartphone, however. While convenience is certainly a factor, mobile broadband is not a substitute for a fixed connection. 4G service (which provides the speed necessary to stream video) is not universally available, and most phones come with either data caps or data throttling. Data caps become more severe if trying to turn a phone into a “hotspot” to connect other devices, like laptops and desktop computers or smart TVs. This is troubling for the 20% of rural Americans who access the internet solely with their mobile device.


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