For much of the developed world, the cost is not the construction of the cable... plastic or metal.. but rather the people cost of actually stringing the "wire".
Really rather enormously expensive to replace existing "wire". In new construction, fiber almost always makes sense, but in replacing existing wire - the cost is really quite high. And in some cases... wireless can provide a higher performance fixed network performance than an existing, ancient, copper wire.
But wireless has its best place in applications with mobile devices and in locations where there is no wired infrastructure and not many dollars - the developing world for example.
Actually both work. Building out fiber is always a good thing since a wire ALWAYS has more capacity than a wireless connection for the same amount of technology applied. But... it is VERY expensive to lay down fiber - particularly those last few hundred meters.
Wireless - when well applied and deployed - can be very good. This story is consistent with what I have been finding in our survey of wireless networks - WiMax is about as good as the best of the WiFi networks... but a bit more expensive.
At these frequencies, indoor coverage will always be marginal without repeaters at the exterior wall boundary. However, companies such a Meraki have shown we can make such repeaters at VERY low cost.
An effective metro WiFi network will need on the order of 70-100 access points per square mile (what Minneapolis and Toronto have) and an effective WiMax network network will likely need 5. However, the WiFi nodes are $4-5k/node installed and the WiMax nodes are $200-300K/node.
I have been now actually measuring various cell data networks with various clients.. including an iPhone.
And the truth is that a real 3G network (HSPA or 1xEVDO Rev A) has about 300 msec latency and usually will deliver 2-300 kbps upstream TCP throughput and 700 kpbs downstream TCP throughput. On average. YMMV and it does vary based materially on time of day and network load. None of these networks does very well in an airport around 5-6PM. And of course.. you should preferably be in a major metro area to get 3G at all.
EDGE - either on an iPhone or a separate data card... gets north of 500 msec latency, often approaching 1000 msec, and averages around 100 kbps throughput. The good news sorta.. is that that throughput is roughly the same up and down.
EDGE is really not very good. HSPA is really quite good. And is getting better. WiFi compensates a bit for EDGE's performance shortcomings... but frankly it is the delicious quality of the web browser image on the iPhone that distracts from EDGE's inadequacy.
Now... an iPhone with HSPA and an 802.11n client? Rock and roll guys... this would be truly high performance at the state of the art.
And a world phone as well.
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For much of the developed world, the cost is not the construction of the cable ... plastic or metal .. but rather the people cost of actually stringing the "wire".
Really rather enormously expensive to replace existing "wire". In new construction, fiber almost always makes sense, but in replacing existing wire - the cost is really quite high. And in some cases ... wireless can provide a higher performance fixed network performance than an existing, ancient, copper wire.
But wireless has its best place in applications with mobile devices and in locations where there is no wired infrastructure and not many dollars - the developing world for example.
Actually both work. Building out fiber is always a good thing since a wire ALWAYS has more capacity than a wireless connection for the same amount of technology applied. But ... it is VERY expensive to lay down fiber - particularly those last few hundred meters.
Wireless - when well applied and deployed - can be very good. This story is consistent with what I have been finding in our survey of wireless networks - WiMax is about as good as the best of the WiFi networks ... but a bit more expensive.
At these frequencies, indoor coverage will always be marginal without repeaters at the exterior wall boundary. However, companies such a Meraki have shown we can make such repeaters at VERY low cost.
An effective metro WiFi network will need on the order of 70-100 access points per square mile (what Minneapolis and Toronto have) and an effective WiMax network network will likely need 5. However, the WiFi nodes are $4-5k/node installed and the WiMax nodes are $200-300K/node.
I have been now actually measuring various cell data networks with various clients .. including an iPhone.
And the truth is that a real 3G network (HSPA or 1xEVDO Rev A) has about 300 msec latency and usually will deliver 2-300 kbps upstream TCP throughput and 700 kpbs downstream TCP throughput. On average. YMMV and it does vary based materially on time of day and network load. None of these networks does very well in an airport around 5-6PM. And of course .. you should preferably be in a major metro area to get 3G at all.
EDGE - either on an iPhone or a separate data card ... gets north of 500 msec latency, often approaching 1000 msec, and averages around 100 kbps throughput. The good news sorta .. is that that throughput is roughly the same up and down.
EDGE is really not very good. HSPA is really quite good. And is getting better. WiFi compensates a bit for EDGE's performance shortcomings ... but frankly it is the delicious quality of the web browser image on the iPhone that distracts from EDGE's inadequacy.
Now ... an iPhone with HSPA and an 802.11n client? Rock and roll guys ... this would be truly high performance at the state of the art.
And a world phone as well.