Nextlink: Broadband Funding Rules Work Against Fixed Wireless

speeds, latency, jitter, all the characteristics that consumers really care about, fixed wireless is able to meet and exceed those requirements significantly,” he said. Nextlink received more than $700 million through the Connect America and rural digital opportunity funds but faces some reductions “because we found fewer funded locations in certain areas than the FCC thought there were,” he said. The “financial haircut” affects long-term planning, timeline to deployment and the speeds Nextlink will be able to offer consumers, he said. The broadband, equity, access and deployment program has a “decidedly fiber-heavy flavor,” he said. Nextlink does fiber and fixed wireless access, but the rules work against FWA deployments, he said. Telus sees FWA as critical to its 5G plans, particularly for rural communities, said Ibrahim Gedeon, chief technology officer at the Canadian provider. Telus has 350,000 FWA customers, all in its traditional wireline service area, which is probably the most of any provider in Canada, he said. The deployments provide speeds of up to 100 Mbps “providing, actually, what we think is a healthy lifeline,” he said. As the company upgrades more customers to fiber-to-the-home, deploying more fiber, Telus is also deploying FWA, he said: “It’s clicking well. … It’s the same network.”