The United States is big–around 3.8-million-square-miles–and has widely varied geography. As such, providing true nationwide broadband service is a heavy lift. And, naturally, service providers only have so much money to invest in network builds meaning that population centers take priority over rural areas. But that paradigm is slowly changing as operators continue to extend broadband access to rural America.
Bret Swanson, president of research firm Entropy Economics, said rural broadband provides residents more than just access to services and content most of us have come to expect, but cal also “yield additional economic benefits and can help create new jobs.”
To incentivize operators to extend the reach of their networks, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission provides investment via its Connect America Fund. Using this pool of funding, AT&T recently extended its fixed wireless broadband offering in parts of nine states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.
In Texas, state Rep. James White said the service “is great news for business, families and individuals who rely on a strong connection at home, at work and at play.”
The long-term plan for the rural offering, which provides 10 Mbps downlink throughput and 1 Mbps in the uplink, is to serve 1.1 million locations by 2020 in the aforementioned states as well as in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
AT&T provides the service wirelessly with transmission coming from a tower connecting to a smaller antenna attached to a home or business. “Closing the connectivity gap is a top priority for us,” said Cheryl Choy, vice president, wired voice and internet products at AT&T. “Access to fast and reliable internet is a game changer in today’s world. This service will bring countless opportunities for more customers in underserved rural locations.”
AT&T is just one player reaching into rural America. T-Mobile US has emphasized its strategy to gain new customers by bolstering its coverage in areas that it did not previously serve as completely, and played up the advantages it will have as it rolls out its newly acquired 600 MHz spectrum for expanded nationwide coverage and capacity. The carrier has already been lighting up a few early 600 MHz sites in places like Wyoming and Maine and has told the FCC it plans to “rapidly deploy” the spectrum.
Further, T-Mobile this week continued its rural expansion in the Midwest by buying out the remaining interest in regional carrier Iowa Wireless. iWireless, as it’s called, was founded in 1997 and is a partnership between T-Mobile US and business services company Aureon. The transaction to close in late 2017 or early 2018. iWireless is based in West Des Moines and offers service in Iowa, western Illinois and eastern Nebraska. The company has about 75,000 customers and 103 company stories and authorized dealers.
In the rugged Sierra Nevada foothills, which range to the northeast and southeast of Sacramento, Calif., Cal.net provides wired and wireless broadband services, as well as VoIP telephony, with wireless consumer services topping out at 25 Mbps downlink throughput and 4 Mbps on the uplink. In effort to augment that service using a fixed wireless access LTE deployment model, the WISP is working with ExteNet Systems to prep for commercial use of the CBRS band.
The 3.5 GHz CBRS band is the subject of major interest in the telecom community. In the U.S. a three-tiered spectrum access system would allow incumbent, priority and general access users to tap into the spectrum, while, globally, it’s seen as a key band to deliver 5G roaming support. A lot of CBRS conversations are geared around enabling private LTE networks for industrial and enterprise applications, but this project demonstrates the potential value of using shared spectrum to better cover rural areas. Right now this deployment is operating in compliance with Part 90 rules awaiting the SAS approval.
