4G killed all WISPs and all wired competition that wasn’t CATV or fiber in markets where you had access to unlimited flat-rate 4G.
5G is just the nail in the coffin.
5G is just the nail in the coffin.
WISPs should be quite safe in the USA, then; data caps are still everywhere. Actually, I had a data cap even on wired fiber, just higher.
That isn't entirely true, G.fast is a pretty decent alternative here, unlimited 4G/5G is too unreliable for a lot of people.
I have 2 ADSL2 lines that connect to a fiber node a bit more than a mile away, each gets about 20 Mbps of bandwidth. Spectrum gives a lot more bandwidth for less money just 2.5 miles away, but I really get 100% of what I am paying for almost all of the time so I can't complain too much.
Had we really been thinking straight about the "information superhighway" in 1994 we would have just decided it was a function of the electric company and strung an optic fiber along with the power lines and it would have been "least cost".
People writing about the future in the 1970s expected we would go straight to fiber without detours into CATV, DSL, spotty, expensive and low-performing wireless systems, etc.
I never thought of WISPs existing elsewhere as it doesn't make nearly as much sense if you have access to "real" broadband. I suppose this niche was wider at one point?
Speaking as someone who used to live in Long Lake and had to drive to the edge of the hamlet down at a bridge just to get a single bar to check back in on family, I certainly wish the APA would loosen up a bit more on just letting towers go up.