Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about fiber-optic communication. The phone companies are hyping fiber as the best thing since sliced bread. I constantly see commercials for a certain phone company’s fiber-optic network that make it seem as though this technology is widely available and will improve broadband for all.

Reality is slightly different. From 2003 to 2007, business fiber availability only increased by 5%, from 10.2% of U.S. commercial buildings with twenty or more employees to 15.3% (results courtesy of a recent Vertical Systems Group study.

A recent article from IDG News Service offers an explanation for the so called “fiber gap,” noting the U.S. (and Europe) continues to struggle with wide scale deployments of fiber optics. Why? Because it’s expensive!

Bridgewave Communications estimates, the average cost to put fiber in the ground is $500k/mile!

As much as the phone companies try to improve their cables, there will always be a divide between those that have, and those that don’t have access to fiber. An easy solution to this is to simply make everything wireless.

With wireless broadband, there’s no need for cables to be run underground. There is no need for maintenance of installed wires. Everyone can access the wireless network and doesn’t have to wait for the infrastructure to be built.

I also keep hearing, “But Jeff, phone company fiber-optics offers extremely fast connections not available with wireless broadband.”

Today, this is just not true. Gigabit wireless ethernet, a technology which provides last mile access, can deliver fiber-like performance and save users tons of money. Wireless pipes have evolved to the point where bandwidth speeds are on par with fiber-optic broadband performance.

Towerstream’s VP Engineering, Arthur Giftakis explains “In Manhattan, arguably the most fibered area in the world, it was not possible to connect our facilities with fiber. In most cases there was no fiber available and/or the cost to make it available was prohibitive. We started using Gigabit Ethernet Wireless links in Manhattan over a year ago. It has been our experience that there is no additional latency or loss. In fact, the latency and loss actually decreased since we are taking direct paths between buildings and not adding intermediary switching points.”

I have also included some actual ping tests below. A ping test is a tool used to measure the round-trip time for data to travel.

One is fiber and one is wireless guess which one is faster?

Sample over Fiber from Boston (BOS1) to PVD1.
cr.bos1#ping
Protocol [ip]:
Target IP address: 64.17.X.X
Repeat count [5]: 1000
Datagram size [100]:
Timeout in seconds [2]:
Extended commands [n]:
Sweep range of sizes [n]: 

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 1000, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 64.17.X.X, timeout is 2 seconds:
Success rate is 100 percent (1000/1000), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/3/20 ms

Ping between NYC3 and NYC2 over RF (bridgewave)
dr.nyc3#ping 69.38.X.X repeat 1000

Type escape sequence to abort.
Sending 1000, 100-byte ICMP Echos to 69.38.143.242, timeout is 2 seconds:
Success rate is 100 percent (1000/1000), round-trip min/avg/max = 1/2/18 ms

What’s the bottom line here? Wireless is replicating fiber in many ways, especially speed. And what’s more, this technology allows for skipping the slow process of laying down the wires and saves users money too.