- Nonprofit DigitalC plans to connect the entire city of Cleveland with fixed wireless, and it's not fussing about foliage
- It's also zeroing in on network redundancy to keep customers connected if there's a hiccup in the system
- DigitalC offers symmetrical 100-meg for $18/month
Fixed wireless access (FWA) is often thought of as a way to connect remote areas where fiber can’t do the job. But the technology also has a place in the big city, as nonprofit DigitalC has shown.
DigitalC kicked off in January an 18-month plan to construct a citywide FWA network in Cleveland. The network, which runs on Tarana’s next generation FWA platform, is funded by around $30 million in state and federal funds along with $20 million from private donations, said DigitalC COO Jose Valdez.
Deploying fixed wireless in a large city comes with some challenges. So, DigitalC wants to ensure it doesn’t bark up the wrong tree (literally).
Cleveland’s dense tree canopy is a “significant obstacle for signal propagation,” Valdez told Fierce, as trees absorb, block and scatter radio waves.
Tarana’s tech employs a few tactics to combat the foliage. For instance, it uses beamforming to focus signals in specific directions and it can adjust the signals based on environmental conditions – not only trees but also temperature and moving objects.
“Additionally, carefully controlled increases in transmitter power can compensate for signal loss, and selecting appropriate frequency bands can further mitigate the impact of tree interference,” Valdez added.
DigitalC’s network runs across 77 square miles with what are called “macro Points of Presence (PoPs)” – towers or tall buildings with radios on top that transmit the fixed wireless signal.
A “critical challenge” was designing a radio frequency (RF) layout of vertical assets that “offered citywide coverage while maintaining cost-efficiency for both initial deployment and future growth,” Valdez noted.
A redundant network is a good network
DigitalC also homed in on network redundancy, which is the process of providing multiple paths for traffic so data can keep flowing, even if something goes wrong.
Customers get their connection via a wireless router, much like they would if subscribed to cable or fiber. The difference with DigitalC is “how we come into the house,” Valdez said.
Cable and fiber providers typically run just one connection into the home “because it’s too expensive to run two wires.” But in FWA’s case, if a tower happens to go down due to maintenance or a power outage, “that radio in your house can register to another tower.”
In some cases, consumers may have a DigitalC router “as an alternative in their house for whoever they have,” said Valdez.
DigitalC also recently launched a second data center to serve as a backup pathway for internet traffic. That way, if the connection flowing from the first data center runs into any problems, subscribers aren’t as impacted.
“You read about it all the time – a service provider was down for two to three hours or multiple hours,” Valdez said. “We’re designing a network to prevent that type of outage. Having a second exit point out to the internet is going to allow us to do that.”
DigitalC currently has just over 700 customers subscribed to its Canopy internet service. Ultimately, the goal is to have a “sustainable” subscriber model, which in this case would be around “23,000-plus subscribers.”
For now, DigitalC expects to add around 100 subs per week, said Valdez, but “then grow that as we go.”
The company does have good reason to think that figure will go up, as it offers a minimum of symmetrical 100 Mbps speeds for just $18 per month.
“We’re not looking for profit…we don’t have to do any return on investment to anybody,” he said.
Any resident in the city will be able to subscribe to DigitalC’s internet, “it doesn’t really matter how much you earn.”
Fixed wireless frenzy
DigitalC is getting in on a fixed wireless craze that's been sweeping the U.S. for the past few years. Customer satisfaction reports from Ericsson and J.D. Power found consumers are gravitating toward FWA since it’s a cheaper internet alternative.
And as grant processes get underway for the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, wireless internet service providers (WISPs) want to make sure fixed wireless voices are heard. In an encouraging turn of events, NTIA Chief Alan Davidson last week disclosed plans to release guidance that will allow (in some cases) the use of unlicensed spectrum for BEAD projects. Many WISPS use unlicensed spectrum to provide service.
The NTIA's guidance could encourage states to be more open to fixed wireless deployments.
An FWA network can be built in as little as three to six months, WISPA’s Steve Schwerbel recently told Fierce, and offer “the same speeds and reliability and access as a comparable fiber network.” But it could take years to build that fiber.
“An over-reliance on fiber is going to be antithetical to the true goals of this program,” which is to connect everyone who needs broadband, he said.