Is Fixed Wireless an "Inferior" Product or Not?

Cable TV suppliers of internet access continue to argue that fixed wireless is an “inferior” product whose market impact is temporary, while the hybrid fiber coax product offers performance advantages. 

Others might simply argue that fixed wireless is an attractive "value" oriented product that perhaps 20 percent of the present market is willing to buy--and does buy--services operating at 200 Mbps or less. In other words, there is significant demand for “inferior” products in the home broadband market. 

Over time, speeds will have to increase, in every category, including the “value” segment. But there is little reason to believe a significant portion of the market will stop preferring “value” connections, especially as speeds and prices continue to rise for all the other tiers of service. 

Source	Year	Percentage of Customers with Speeds of 200 Mbps or Lower
Openvault	2023	Up to 25%
FCC - Measuring Fixed Broadband - Twelfth Report	2023	15%
NTIA - 2020 Broadband Deployment Report	2020	43%
Leichtman Research Group - Q3 2023 Report	2023	32%
Pew Research Center - Broadband Adoption Report 2023	2023	28%

Fixed wireless access is “an inferior product with limited capacity and geographic coverage which is fluid, is often marketed by the phone companies at a perceived lower-priced to their existing customers, “ said Chris Winfrey, Charter Communications CEO. “ We continue to believe the impact from fixed wireless is temporary.”

Charter argues its hybrid fiber coax product is “faster and more reliable,” and can offer lower pricing when home broadband is purchased in a bundle with mobile or video services. 

Charter also believes the mobile operators will run out of sufficient capacity, eventually, and will have to limit the amount of capacity available to support fixed wireless. 

Of course, there also is competition on the high end. But Charter seems unconcerned about that. 

Overbuilders--generally using fiber-to-home platforms--”will not be able to take significant market share,” Charter also claims. “Overbuild impact tends to be limited to a few percentage points of Internet penetration during the first year of a new overbuild vintage coming online,” Winfrey argues. 

Others will question that assertion, particularly as the major telcos ramp up their fiber-to-home investments. Generally speaking, major telcos are able to get about 20 percent adoption initially, ramping up to about 40 percent share over several years.

Unicast Video Accounts for Most of the Internet Bandwidth Increases We See

Constant and significant increases in bandwidth consumption are among the fateful implications of switching from linear TV broadcasting to multicast video streaming. Consider that video now constitutes 52 percent to 88 percent of all internet traffic. 

Not all that increase is the direct result of video streaming services. Video now is an important part of social media interactions and advertising on web sites supporting consumer applications, though some studies suggest social media sites overall represent only seven percent to about 15 percent of video traffic consumed by end users. 

Also, there is some amount of internet video traffic between data centers, not intended directly for end users, possibly representing five percent of global internet traffic. 

Study	Date	Video Traffic Share (%)
Cisco Annual Internet Report (2023)	Dec 2022	88%
Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena Report (Q3 2023)	Sep 2023	83%
Limelight Networks State of the Real-Time Web Report (Q3 2023)	Oct 2023	76%
Ericsson Mobility Report (Nov 2023)	Nov 2023	72%
ITU Global Video Traffic Forecasts	Feb 2023	70% (2022)
Ookla Global Video Report (Q2 2023)	Aug 2023	65%
Akamai State of the Internet / Security Report (Q3 2023)	Oct 2023	60%
Statista: Global Internet Traffic Distribution by Content Type (2023)	Oct 2023	58%
GlobalWebIndex Social Video Trends Report (Q3 2023)	Sep 2023	55%
Juniper Networks Visual Networking Index (2023)	Feb 2023	52% (2022)

Ignoring for the moment the impact of video resolution on bandwidth consumption (higher resolution requires more bandwidth), the key change is that broadcasting essentially uses a “one-to-many” architecture, while streaming uses a unicast architecture. 

The best example is that a scheduled broadcast TV show, for example, can essentially send one copy of the content to every viewer (multicast or broadcast delivery). The same number of views, using internet delivery, essentially requires sending the same copy to each viewer separately (unicast delivery). 

In other words, 10 homes watching one multicast or broadcast program, on one channel, at one time consumes X amount of network bandwidth. If 10 homes watch a program of the same file size as the broadcast content, whether simultaneously or not, then bandwidth consumption is 10X. 

There are some nuances for real-world data consumption, such as the fact that consumption of linear video is declining or the fact that broadcasting uses a constant amount of bandwidth, no matter how many viewers in an area might be watching or not watching. 

Study	Comparison	Bandwidth Ratio (Streaming/Broadcasting)
"A Comparative Analysis of Video Streaming and Broadcasting for Live Sports Events" (2023)	Live sports streaming vs. multicast	10x - 15x
"Bandwidth Efficiency of IPTV vs. Traditional Broadcasting" (2022)	IPTV unicasting vs. terrestrial broadcasting	2x - 4x
"The Impact of Unicast Video Delivery on Network Traffic" (2021)	Unicasting video vs. multicast video	1.5x - 3x
"Comparing the Bandwidth Consumption of Live Streaming and P2P Delivery" (2020)	Live streaming vs. P2P for live events	3x - 6x
"The Bandwidth Efficiency of Video Streaming Protocols" (2019)	HTTP streaming vs. RTMP streaming	1.2x - 2x
"A Study of User-Generated Video Delivery on Social Media Platforms" (2018)	User-generated video streaming vs. traditional video streaming	2x - 4x
"The Bandwidth Implications of 4K and 8K Video Streaming" (2017)	Higher resolution streaming vs. standard definition	4x - 8x
"The Impact of Mobile Video Streaming on Network Congestion" (2016)	Mobile video streaming vs. fixed-line streaming	1.5x - 3x
"The Future of Video Delivery: A Cost Comparison of Streaming and Broadcasting" (2015)	Streaming vs. broadcasting for future content delivery	2x - 4x
"The Bandwidth Efficiency of Video-on-Demand Services" (2014)	Video-on-demand streaming vs. linear broadcasting	1.5x - 2.5x

There are other nuances as well. Since a broadcast video stream often is viewed on a television set, it is possible that multiple viewers “share” viewing of the same content. If one TV is receiving a program, and five people are watching, the “single delivery” supports five views. 

On a “per viewer” basis, X amount of delivery bandwidth is X/5 for each viewer of the same program. 

If five people watch a program of equivalent file size at the same time, data consumption is 5X. 

Study	Year	Methodology	Streaming Bandwidth (Mbps)	Linear Broadcasting Bandwidth (Mbps)
Nielsen	2022	Network traffic analysis	3.1-4.7 (average)	0.1-0.2 (average)
OpenVault	2023	ISP data analysis	1.8-2.5 (average)	0.05-0.15 (average)
Pew Research Center	2021	Survey and network analysis	2.3-3.8 (average)	0.1-0.2 (average)
University of Zurich	2019	Network monitoring and simulation	2.0-3.5 (average)	0.08-0.18 (average)
Akamai	2020	Global traffic analysis	1.6-2.8 (average)	0.04-0.12 (average)
Sandvine	2022	Network traffic analysis report	3.5-5.0 (peak)	0.15-0.25 (peak)
Netflix	2021	Open Connect content delivery platform report	0.5-1.5 (average)	N/A
BBC Research & Development	2018	HbbTV hybrid broadcasting analysis	1.0-2.0 (combined)	0.03-0.08 (combined)
Bitmovin	2023	Video encoding and delivery technology report	0.8-1.8 (efficient encoding)	N/A
Ericsson	2022	Mobile network video traffic report	0.5-2.0 (mobile average)	N/A

The point is that the shift from broadcasting (multicasting) to unicast entertainment video was destined to dramatically increase internet data consumption.