I guess my answer remains the same - you can and already do the things that AT&T can’t or isn’t willing to do. The reason we are able to use inexpensive spectrum so efficiently is that we are careful in how and where we place equipment and use high gain antennas to accomplish efficient use of the spectrum. AT&T isn’t going to be willing to build a system the way we do. They want to have no physical contact with the customer location - if they can’t mail the CPE to the customer and have the customer install it I don’t see them sticking with the model in the long term. Their labor cost is simply too high. The way around that for the mobile carriers is to have enough spectrum and RF power to be able to accomplish a self install - but that takes far more spectrum than they have, smaller cell sites, and isn’t very spectrally efficient - meaning they have to spend even more money acquiring the spectrum (or buying off the regulators).
I see Centurylink and Frontier being pushed into fixed wireless simply to meet the CAF obligations they took with no real idea of how they were going to meet them. I still don’t see them having the work force and making the investment to compete long term in this space. They will do the minimum they have to do in order to meet the obligations they took on with CAF while looking for the next bailout. Mark > On Oct 30, 2017, at 12:44 PM, Joe Miller <[email protected]> wrote: > > Mark, > > AT&T and others like them are getting into the LTE space which does have an > impact on our customer base. > > I guess my question should have been…. “What did it take you to establish a > profitable Fixed Wireless system and how have you been able to compete with > AT&T’s of the world?” > > Joe > > From: Mark Radabaugh [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>] > Sent: Monday, October 30, 2017 11:23 AM > To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>; WISPA General > List > Subject: Re: [WISPA] question of the day > > Kind of an open ended question - do you have any more specifics of what they > are looking for? > > I think you already know most of this - access to capital, spectrum, > competent employees and management, vertical assets, and bandwidth, all at > reasonable rates are the keys to a profitable fixed wireless service. > Everything after that is just standard business. > > You compete and win against AT&T by avoiding many of the fixed costs that > AT&T has, and by doing things that generally don’t work well in large > corporations - having local knowledge and decision making, ability to use > non-standardized sites, localized marketing and sales. You also use > inexpensive spectrum that you do not have to pay billions of dollars for in > upfront costs. You can use unlicensed spectrum because you have local > installers who are able to optimize the signal to customer locations, > something that AT&T is not prepared or particularly interested in doing. > > The challenge isn’t competing with AT&T for a small to midsize WISP. The > real challenge is competing with small to midsize WISP’s when you get to be > the size of AT&T. > > Turn the question around on them. How can a company the size of AT&T, with > little interest in serving rural areas, compete with the people who live here > and have a real interest in making this business succeed? If AT&T makes a > hash of it they still get a paycheck next Friday. If you screw it up it’s a > different story. > > Mark > > > >> On Oct 30, 2017, at 11:46 AM, Joe Miller <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> I am trying to make forward progress in the state government in MS and this >> question was raised: >> >> “What does it take to establish a profitable Fixed Wireless system and how >> this can compete with AT&T?” >> >> >> >> I could use some input on the different ways you have done this. >> >> Regards, >> >> Joe Miller >> www.dslbyair.com <http://www.dslbyair.com/> >> www.facebook.com/dslbyair <http://www.facebook.com/dslbyair> >> 228-831-8881 >> >> "We believe that everyone has a right to high speed Internet. It should not >> matter where you work or live. We do this one customer at a time". >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wireless mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless >> <http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless>
_______________________________________________ Wireless mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
