There seems to be a myth that if you live outside the city limits, you will be limited to dial-up internet. AOL or EarthLink? Decision, decisions…
We are setting the bar too low on rural broadband. Every president since President Clinton has issued statements about bridging the “digital divide.” The suggestion that there is hardly any broadband in rural America is a myth.
In December, Amazon’s Project Kuiper put out a video with a case study of Cle Elum, Washington, a town that “is affected by limited broadband access,” per Amazon. The video had me shaking my head.
Rural America has internet options – and so does Cle Elum
I checked a random address in Cle Elum and found that HughesNet is offering download speeds of 25 Mbps for $44.99/month, with the price going up to $64.99/month after six months. There is a 15 GB soft cap for data, with speeds slowed afterward, but not halted. HughesNet has more expensive plans with data options of 30 GB, 45 GB, and 75 GB.
Viasat in Cle Elum is modestly more expensive, but provides more data. A good analysis of these providers’ services is here from Reviews.org.
What addresses can be served by HughesNet and Viasat? Basically, any address with a view of the southern sky.
Starlink, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, now has more than 2,000 satellites in orbit, and its plans start at $99/month. Yes, there is a $499 equipment cost, but performance options are there. “Starlink Premium users can expect download speeds of 150-500 Mbps and latency of 20-40ms, enabling high throughput connectivity for small offices, storefronts and super users across the globe,” per Starlink. The cost is $500/month, but the point is that customers have options.
RELATED: Starlink intros faster LEO satellite broadband tier for $500 per month
OneWeb is planning a satellite broadband service and already has a majority of its planned constellation of 648 satellites in orbit. Amazon’s Project Kuiper is in the works. Telesat of Canada is partnering with Tata Group of India for a future megaconstellation and there are reports about possible Chinese megaconstellations developing.
RELATED: BT, OneWeb fire up new LEO satellite connectivity deal
Oh yeah…the wireless carriers
Which cableco led broadband net adds during 4Q 2021? That was a trick question. It was T-Mobile. T-Mobile added 224,000 broadband subscribers during the quarter, up strongly from 134,000 in 3Q 2021. T-Mobile is offering its affordable $50/month service to 120 million Americans. The gateway is free.
Verizon is getting real about Verizon 5G Home. I was a huge skeptic of this service as long as it relied on mmWave spectrum, which has horrible signal propagation. C-band is a different story. In January, Verizon went from offering Verizon 5G Home to less than 1% of addresses to covering a population of 20 million. If you have a premium unlimited plan from Verizon, the cost is very affordable at $25/month.
Is Verizon serious about internet access? I’ve said no until now. Verizon recently started reporting fixed wireless subscriber metrics. There were 78,000 fixed wireless additions during 4Q21. Remarkably, this number exceeded Verizon’s 51,000 Fios Internet additions.
Verizon just acquired a portfolio of prepaid brands from TracFone. Will these brands sell internet using Verizon’s C-band spectrum? As precedent, T-Mobile is now extending its home internet capabilities to MVNOs, as Wave7 Research recently reported. Specifically, Ultra Home Internet from Ultra Mobile and EarthLink Wireless Home Internet are now available.
Nearly everyone has access to Verizon’s network, which is used by Straight Talk. Straight Talk now provides unlimited mobile data plus 5 GB of hotspot for $45/month. Its $55/month plan provides 15 GB of hotspot.
I’m saying there are options.
Rural America, the natural habitat for WISPs
There are now at least 2,800* fixed wireless-centric ISPs serving 6.9 million subscribers, with the number growing to 12.7 million by the end of 2025, the Carmel Group recently reported. Hundreds of WISPs are rolling out services to small towns and rural areas, under the radar screen of most observers. One tower at a time, these WISPs are taking bites out of the digital divide.
RELATED: Fixed wireless steps into the spotlight in 2021
Wave7 Research recently told the story of Mercury Broadband, which covers a population of 1.8 million and is expanding organically. Already in 2022, the company has launched service in St. Joseph, Missouri, and has opened a large new headquarters building in Topeka, Kansas. Mercury Broadband is likely to launch 250 towers this year, while upgrading as many as 100 towers to newer technologies. And the Michigan cities of Kalamazoo and Jackson are likely to be launched.
In the San Francisco Bay area, Sail Internet is busily launching one neighborhood after the next. On January 31, the enthusastic WISP happily tweeted, “Hello, San Mateo!”
As more spectrum is deployed and as technologies change, WISPs are no longer only a niche for rural America. San Mateo is not a one stoplight town.
And Starry Internet is using a technology that is better suited to MDUs in urban areas. Its technology involves a mmWave signal to a rooftop antenna, with the signal distributed via a building’s internal wiring. Starry Internet has a great deal of spectrum to deploy and is planning an IPO, which should help financially with deployment.
RELATED: C Spire commits $1B for 5G deployment
Quite a few WISPs also are deploying fiber to homes. This is true of some regional carriers as well, such as C Spire Wireless, a southern regional carrier. “C Spire already announced its plan to spend around $500 million in Alabama over the next three years to speed up the rollout of all-fiber broadband internet,” Montgomery, Alabama, news station WSFA reported in January.
What about affordability?
This is the real question. Megaconstellations are going aloft, providing broad choice for satellite broadband. WISPs are on the march in rural America. All for the better. But these pale by comparison with what T-Mobile and Verizon are doing. The good news is that competition drives pricing lower, which is good for all consumers.
How to make broadband affordable for the less fortunate is a question for another day. That said, the Emergency Broadband Benefit provided 8.1 million households with access during May-December 2021. Its successor, the Affordable Connectivity Program, is underway. Many companies and government entities have public-minded programs in place. T-Mobile has stated that it is “giving free hotspots and internet to 10 million eligible households” as part of its Project 10 Million.
Back to Cle Elum
“Get CenturyLink Internet in Cle Elum, Washington” with “all speeds up to 100 Mbps” pitches CenturyLink’s page for the town. CenturyLink is the incumbent phone company in the area. T-Mobile Home Internet is available to much of Cle Elum, BroadbandNow reports. Symplified Technologies and Inland Networks are WISPs in the area and Inland Networks has an FTTP network in town.
Cle Elum is a beautiful area, so beautiful that you might be tempted to move there. If you do, don’t transfer your AOL dial-up connection there or invest in tin cans and strings. You’ll be okay.
Jeff Moore is Principal of Wave7 Research, a wireless research firm that covers U.S. postpaid, prepaid, and smartphone competition. Jeff has 25 years of telecom industry experience, including 13 years of competitive intelligence work for Sprint. Follow him on Twitter @wave7jeff.
Industry Voices are opinion columns written by outside contributors—often industry experts or analysts—who are invited to the conversation by FierceWireless staff. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of FierceWireless.
*Article updated Feb. 7 with reference to corrected number of fixed wireless-centric ISPs.