Technology Choices

A public network owner could deploy a single technology or multiple technologies to cover its service territory. Coverage could be an urban residential neighborhood or a downtown area or business park, the entirety of a small town or large city, or one or more rural counties. Selected technologies could be FTTH, Wi-Fi, or fixed wireless, each with a different set of bandwidth capabilities, deployment timelines, and capital and operating expenses. The right technology choices depend on the community’s specific goals.

A FTTH network is the gold standard of broadband infrastructure. Current fiber technology allows customers to receive up to 10 Gbps symmetrical service. Increasing numbers of fiber-based ISPs are offering minimum speeds of 100 Mbps symmetrical up to a 2 Gbps service. Fiber infrastructure is a generational investment with an expected life span of at least 30 years. As network electronics improve over time, the capacity of these networks is certain to increase. Beyond speeds, fiber is superior in reliability, expected life span, expected electronics life span, and overall maintenance costs.

Fiber networks might be the best choice when:

• Existing urban services over coaxial cable or twisted-pair copper are lacking due to capacities, pricing, and/or customer service.
• A government wants to build a fiber network to serve anchor institutions (schools, libraries, hospitals, government agencies) within a single community, a county, or a region.
• Unserved/underserved rural areas need high-quality services to support agriculture, rural business, tele-workers, and daily living, especially if the area is poorly suited for fixed wireless services.

Fixed wireless services might be the best choice when:

• An area is well suited for wireless, such as an agricultural prairie with few hills and/or trees, many options for radio placement such as water towers and grain elevators, and with available fiber middle-mile backhaul.
• A provider with a midterm goal of fiber deployment wants to build a middle-mile network that can support wireless deployment in the short term and fiber-optic networks in the mid- to long term.
• A community wants to provide free or low-cost services within targeted physical areas—such as a downtown neighborhood or to targeted populations who may live in multifamily and/or affordable housing.

Within the wireless category, there are many considerations related to licensed versus unlicensed frequencies, fixed wireless versus Wi-Fi, and delivery of end-user broadband services over wireless or wired networks. For example, with an apartment building, a provider could use fixed wireless to provide a gigabit connection to the rooftop and then use either Wi-Fi or existing building wiring to reach consumers.