The question of whether mobile broadband will replace wireline service reared its ignorant head again at a California Public Utilities Commission broadband discussion in Sacramento last week. Citing his wife’s preference for a mobile phone, CPUC president Michael Picker questioned the idea that “broadband to the home” is a good way of getting service to under and unserved communities, via the state’s primary broadband infrastructure subsidy program, the California Advanced Services Fund.
The panel’s best response came from Ana Maria Johnson, a program manager with the CPUC’s public advocates office. Echoing findings already made by the CPUC as well as the Federal Communications Commission, she said you need both…
A wireline broadband connection is essential. It’s not a substitute for your mobile broadband. When you have a wireline connection coming to your home you set up a wireless router where you can use your different devices – your laptop, you have your your desktop, you connect all the devices that you need. Students, in doing homework, need that wireline connection. They’re using a Chromebook, or they’re using a tablet, but they’re connecting through their wireless router on the wireline connection, because of the speed and capacity that they need to be able to do that work. Your mobile phone is essential as well, but it’s a complement to your wireline connection. So I don’t think it’s one or the other, but we know that the wireline connection is critical.
The idea that wireless networks can, via the magic of 5G and elsewise, provide all the capacity residential users need is a favorite talking point of mobile carriers, and particularly AT&T, which wants to rip out its rural copper networks. Depending on which stats you look at, in-home wireline data use is one or two orders of magnitude greater than mobile data consumption, and both continue to grow. Mobile carriers are pushing, and investing, as fast as they can just to keep pace with the demands of smartphones and other devices that can’t be reached any other way.
You need both.