Consultant: Cable Trying to Starve Fixed Wireless Competitors of Spectrum
Faced with competition from fixed wireless access (FWA), fiber and increasingly low earth orbit satellite, cable internet service providers are responding by trying to starve FWA of spectrum it needs in the 3, 6, 7 and 8 GHz bands, consultant…
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Richard Bennett wrote last week. Cable is also trying to siphon BEAD funding from fiber by directing it at less-powerful technologies like SpaceX's Starlink, he said. In addition, cable is improving its service by tackling "its painful asymmetry," he said. "Broadband doesn’t need to be equal speeds up and down, but 40 Mbps up and 1.2 Gbps down is ridiculous." DOCSIS 4.0 technology is developing slowly, Bennett said, and marketing it will necessitate a sales pitch very different from cable's traditional emphasis on download speeds, while ignoring everything else.