On Tue, September 29, 2009 10:07 am, Mike Hammett wrote: > I don't understand how Verizon and AT&T have problems with capacity on > their > cell networks. They own the copper and fiber in the ground all over hell. > They have GigE fiber services. It just doesn't make sense.
There's only one ILEC in most places. In an area where AT&T is the ILEC, they could (in theory) run fiber between their towers, but a few miles out of their territory, where Verizon or someone else is the ILEC, they'd have to start running wireless backhauls between towers anyway. Either that, or pay someone else for access to their copper/fiber. There also could be corporate bureaucracy where AT&T (the cell phone company) is a different business unit from AT&T (the ILEC), and due to internal billing, it still may be less expensive for AT&T (the cell phone company) to do it themselves rather than pay AT&T (the ILEC) for all that copper and fiber. Other things that pop into mind: * Some of the capacity is probably last-mile, having too many phones talking to one cell tower (sound familiar, WISPs?) * There are cell phone companies not affiliated with an ILEC anywhere (I don't think Alltel or T-Mobile have any ILEC connections in the US) * There are spots with small ILECs like Frontier where nobody could use anything in the ground without digging their own trenches or paying for it * There are smaller markets where the ILECs have copper but no fiber (I'm in one of those) This may be a bunch of nonsense but it sounds plausible. (Anyone here have cell experience who can chime in with actual useful information?) David Smith MVN.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
