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"First Mile" Wireless
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Wireless "First Mile" technologies, i.e. those that transmit and receive high speed digital data without wires over a licensed or unlicensed portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum, have yet to achieve widespread popularity, currently accounting for less than 5% of broadband usage worldwide. This is because they are all relatively new technologically speaking and the primary commercial providers of broadband - telephone companies and cable companies - are biased towards using their existing networks to deliver broadband employing proven technologies. This bias has led to a growing rural/urban digital divide that wireless "First Mile" technologies will most likely redress in the future.
Bolstering the development of wireless broadband technologies will be the growing demand for broadband in developing countries around the world where mobile phone usage far exceeds copper wired phone connections. For broadband to be effectively deployed in these countries, a wireless "First Mile" solution will certainly be needed creating major global demand and lowering costs. Also, in developed countries, there is evidence that phone companies and cable companies are starting to recognize that if they do not provide these wireless broadband solutions, then other companies and local communities will do so. Wireless broadband coupled with proliferating mobile phone usage completely severs the local loop lock on customers that phone companies have enjoyed for so many decades.
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