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Why is fixed broadband cheaper than 5G/4G/3G connections in most countries and why do companies offer more data in broadband rather than a 5G/4G/3G connection?


 Your observation is correct. Broadband is indeed cheaper than G networks and there are several reasons for this.


Fixed line is a necessity. The present deployment of wireless technology is such that all telecom towers are actually just the termination points for fixed line networks (Very expensive and power hungry termination points for that matter). So that any communication standard you look at , 3G, 4G, 5G it all runs on fixed lines. Without those fixed lines the G networks won’t really work.


Fixed line components are mostly passive (I’ll explain what that means in a minute). This makes them cheaper over the course of very large distances. Although when it comes to the last mile connectivity, they suddenly become expensive. It's not as easy to install fiber in the cities as it is to lay them in an ocean bed. Still fiber installation is no more expensive than installation of electrical lines or laying down of railway tracks or making roads. And if those things can be done certainly fiber can be provisioned.


Fixed line networks provide a predictable, reliable communication channel. You don’t have to worry about getting a line of sight. Or the frequency of operation. Or interference. Your data is isolated within the line. Due to its simplicity it is much easier to understand and hence train people to work on it. Now if you have skilled staff that can help you provision fiber effectively you can lay down more of it and as a result get better speeds, cheaply.


All of these advantages of a fixed line network is due to passive components that don’t require additional equipment to work. A core router at one end of the network and a fiber is all you need.


On the other hand telecom towers are made up of active components. Each base station requires fiber, radio units (each operating at their own frequency), antennas, power supply, line of sight. All of these components have their own quirks. A wireless system has to be “engineered” to work around those quirks. You need to do things like looking for angles to orient antennas , survey the sites, keep a look out for causes of disturbances and avoid them.


The reason that we take so much pain with wireless systems at all is because they are terrific at last mile connectivity. You can distribute the internet to a lot of users in the range of the network. And they don’t have to be tied to a terminal. They can move around and still be connected. All of these conveniences come at the cost of higher prices.


The other part of your question was about speed and capacity. I think that it is a bit unfair to say that wireless communication is inherently slower than fixed line. The reason for my saying that is fixed line communication relies on bidirectional point to point links. In other words the fixed line is not only duplex but each user gets their own independent transmission channel.

This is what the technicians do when they install internet in your home. If you could deploy an equal amount of antennas (wireless equivalent of fixed line networks),giving say a dedicated antenna per user you’d be able to achieve speeds closer to fixed line broadband.


But in the practical scenario that is unlikely to happen. In the future as we increase the total number of antennas that we deploy, wireless networks would become fast enough for users that they won’t demand higher speeds but rather value added services. What would matter more is what you can do on the network rather than how fast it is.


Remember that while the internet provides many things it does cost time to consume those services. It won’t really matter how fast you can stream a movie if you only have time to watch a single movie in a week. After a certain point speed is overrated. What matters more is uniformity.


Here’s a great article I discovered while researching on this topic, that answers whether broadband would still remain relevant in the future? Spoiler Alert : Yes it will.


https://www.ppc-online.com/blog/the-global-broadband-market-2017-is-fixed-broadband-still-growing


Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Mobile:+919654119771

email:getellobed@gmail.com


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