The main way around that cost barrier is to deploy "bad" technology, like wireless. That can be done on a shoestring budget. It works really well in places where there is zero density (rural, exurbs). But it's not the future, it's legacy deployment, with legacy problems and legacy speeds.
That's the current state of the art, but maintaining that decrepitude has taken a decade of FCC foot-dragging on white spaces and other "cognitive" radio applications. We are nowhere near physical limits of spectrum bandwidth, and radio engineers of the future will laugh at our aversion to innovation in this space.
I think the best thing that could happen for competition and choice in data connection would be for radio regulation to be taken away from FCC and given to a less political organization like NIST.
Comments
The main way around that cost barrier is to deploy "bad" technology, like wireless. That can be done on a shoestring budget. It works really well in places where there is zero density (rural, exurbs). But it's not the future, it's legacy deployment, with legacy problems and legacy speeds.
That's the current state of the art, but maintaining that decrepitude has taken a decade of FCC foot-dragging on white spaces and other "cognitive" radio applications. We are nowhere near physical limits of spectrum bandwidth, and radio engineers of the future will laugh at our aversion to innovation in this space.
I think the best thing that could happen for competition and choice in data connection would be for radio regulation to be taken away from FCC and given to a less political organization like NIST.