Wireless Fiber

The recent hype surrounding “5G” and the
FCC’s Spectrum Frontiers proceeding seems premised on freeing up airwaves for
faster, low-latency mobile connectivity.  That will begin to take shape closer to
2020.  Here and now, though, an equally
if not more critical version of “5G” – “wireless fiber” – is already being
deployed by start-ups and, soon, by heavyweights such as Google and Verizon.

Wireless fiber is telecom shorthand for fixed wireless links capable of beaming
high-capacity Internet access of 1 gigabit per second or even faster to homes,
schools and businesses almost anywhere.  Spectrum
policy permitting, this development promises to dramatically cut the cost of
fiber-to-the-home, which today require trenching fiber optic cable over the
final 500 feet, or even longer.

 Access to fiber running under a street –
or on the rooftop of a fiber-fed building – becomes the jumping off point for
extending fiber-fast Internet access to other locations using point-to-point or
point-to-multipoint radio technologies. 
An example is Santa Cruz, California, where a public-private partnership
is extending gigabit connections to 8,000 homes and businesses using millimeter
wave (mmW) wireless technology.

Access to very wide channels of spectrum
is an essential ingredient of wireless fiber. A key policy question is what
spectrum works best? And what spectrum access policies are needed to unlock the
tremendous potential of wireless fiber to affordably connect all of our
nation’s homes, businesses and community anchor institutions?

Speakers:

Milo
Medin
Vice
President, Access Services, Google Fiber

Charla
Rath
 Vice
President, Wireless Policy Development, Verizon

Boris Maysel
Director of Business Development, Siklu

Jaime
Fink

Chief Product
Officer and Co-Founder, Mimosa Networks

Alan
Norman
Public Policy
Director, Facebook

Virginia
Lam Abrams
Senior
Vice President, Communications & Government Relations, Starry Inc.

Moderator:

Michael
Calabrese
Director, Wireless
Future Project, Open Technology Institute, New America