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Fixed terrestrial wireless is indeed a substitute to cable and DSL (especially DSL)



I've personally had three fixed wireless installations over the past decade. Two residential, one business. I've researched the option in numerous additional cases for both business and residential service.

Both business and consumer services are typically more expensive by 10-100% and have installation (particularly LOS) requirements many -- if not most, in topographically unfavorable areas -- cannot meet. While the business services are usually OK once installed, consumer services are particularly unstable and the equipment prone to early death.

Notably, the wireless ISPs I'm familiar with ended up either shut down or moving to a different line of primary business as soon as any sort of viable wired service made it into town.

While far better than relying on mobile data if you don't have other options, it's still definitely not a substitute, even for DSL.


I'm no expert in this, but aren't terrestrial wireless setups (microwave relays, etc) out of reach financially for the average family?


Under the hood, consumer fixed wireless is usually just wifi gear, but running on licensed frequencies and attached to big outdoor antennas.

If you're very, very lucky, the hardware might have been manufactured to run optimally on those frequencies, or it might just be a WAP in a different box running tweaked software.

This has the generally-crappy results you would expect.

Business gear is substantially more robust and expensive.




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