Wireless local loop and personal communications services technologies have come a long way but differences in their network costs don’t reveal a clear winner, according to a new report from Dittberner Associates Inc.
In “Wireless Access to the Switched Network,” Donald Dittberner concludes, “Major niche markets for each wireless technology exist where that technology provides a substantially more cost-effective solution for a given geographic area. A key issue is the extent to which telecom operators will implement multiple wireless solutions.”
This realization is in stark contrast to the projections many manufacturers, equipment and service providers anticipated upon entering this promising arena, the company said.
“Cost of deployment is a critical factor to any new technology that competes with the traditional copper-based access solutions of the [public switched telephone network]. It is less important for a network dedicated to mobile service only, since mobile service still justifies premium user rates compared to fixed telephone service,” the report said.
The study also concludes, “Public wireless data transmission systems have not to date achieved major success anywhere in the world.”
The company attributes this failure to “lack of adequate geographic coverage, even in the United States, dial-up modem service competing extremely successfully and public wireless data services have proven too expensive for most anticipated applications.”
