On Thu, Oct 5, 2023 at 2:17 PM Dick Roy via Nnagain <
nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:

> Has anyone done an analysis of the capacity of FWA systems (in
> bits/sec/Hz/km^3)????  I am suspicious that the capacity falls way short of
> that which cable guys have at their disposal, and that as the FWA networks
> get loaded, performance is going to degrade dramatically ultimately
> resulting in churn back to the cable guys.  It's very expensive to compete
> with already sunk FTTH or even FTTC.
>

I have done this, and blogged on it. What I have not done fully, and what
ignites the FWA-vs-fiber argument re BEAD, is add one more term to that
string of divisors. The term is $.

WISPA’s argument, for example, is not that fiber is cheaper per bit over 30
years, but that FWA is cheaper *now*.

If you build planning for a useful life of 7 years, you are reasonably safe
today if you include enough overhead for annual growth of 20%, or so
history would lead us to believe. If your technology allows average of 10
megabits per user at peak busy hour (generous today), you need
approximately 200% headroom to survive without compression, assuming no new
technologies radically change user behavior. Risky gamble.

Jeremy Austin

>