Is Google going to stop its fiber deployment and shift to wireless technology? If the words of Google parent company Alphabet’s Chairman Eric Schmidt are anything, the internet giant has a clear idea on how to proceed with high-speed broadband services. The company wants to beam high-speed internet delivered using wireless technology to homes, which the company thinks using technology that it says is cheaper than laying cables.
Eric Schmidt said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting that improvements in computer chips and more accurate targeting of wireless signals have made “point-to-point” wireless internet connections that are far cheaper than digging up the garden to lay fiber optic cables. Alphabet executives increasingly think the wireless technology can deliver internet connections at 1 gigabit per second, equivalent to the speed its Google Fiber unit provides through fiber-optic cables in five U.S. cities.
Eric Schmidt met with Alphabet Chief Executive Larry Page, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat and others to discuss the technology. Google Fiber has earlier disclosed that it is testing wireless technology in Kansas City, the first city to receive its high-speed internet service, and hopes to have a demonstration network operating there by next year. Alphabet is also testing several wireless technologies, which could require users to have special devices in their homes to receive the signals.
Alphabet is exploring wireless technologies as a way to reduce the complexity and cost of connecting users to high-speed internet, a boon for its business, which relies on more people using the internet more often.
So, how the Alphabet’s decision will affect fiber optic industry? Google’s decision will have an impact in at least in the United States, where it has been strongly pushing fiber optic connectivity. Fiber optic industry in the United States will have a negative impact due to Alphabet’s decision. North American fiber optic market has been reviving after a sluggish growth for the past several years. The competition in the fiber optic broadband market by AT&t, Google, Verizon and other Cable TV providers was a driving force for growth in the fiber optic product manufacturing industries.
Optical fiber demand in the United States is increasing as many service providers started entering the broadband market offering high speed fixed line broadband over fiber networks. Google’s decision will prompt others to think in the Wireless way. This will have an impact in other countries, at least in some European countries where a final and concrete last mile is not yet concluded in favor of FTTH. For example in the UK and Germany. African countries and Indian Sub-continent may follow the suit.
Post a Comment