DENVER-Wireless carriers may be sitting on a revenue stream that would be relatively easy and cost-effective to deploy, according to Len Gee, vice president of North American Sales for Wireless Inc., a provider of wireless access communications systems for IP broadband networking and telephony interconnection.
Gee was a speaker at last week’s Internet Solutions and Opportunities conference sponsored by the National Telephone Cooperative Association.
Gee said carriers could collocate equipment on towers operating in unlicensed frequency bands to provide fixed high-speed access services to customers and use their existing wireless infrastructure for backhaul. The solution is especially attractive in second-and third-tier markets that increasingly need access to high-speed pipelines.
“If you wanted to augment your business as a cellular provider, and you had an inkling to become an ISP, [your] towers typically have the ability to `see’ small- to medium-sized businesses that have Internet access ability and have the need for high-speed type services,” said Gee.
“In some areas, communications infrastructure doesn’t give the high-speed capability people want,” said Gee. “If they want it, and you can provide it, you’ve got yourself a customer. You’ve got yourself another source of revenue.”
Wireless last-mile access is being touted as an ideal solution for connecting small- and medium-sized businesses to high-speed conduits like fiber. Local multipoint distribution services and multichannel multipoint distribution services licensees are looking to use their spectrum to offer such services, although the technologies are relatively untested and expensive to deploy.
