WISPAPALOOZA 2016 - Day 2 Show Daily

10 / 16

In the world of broadband, there is little doubt
that the advent of fiber will bring faster, more
reliable connections than the traditional copper
infrastructure ever could. What we sometimes
forget, however, is that even fiber has its limits.
For a fiber cable to work, you can do one of
two things: hang it from a pole, or trench it in
the ground. Inherently, this limits the ultimate
reach that fiber will have. We won’t be able to
set up poles in many parts of the world, and the
same goes for digging trenches. Can you imagine
trenching fiber through the Himalayas?
At some point the fiber has to end. Rugged and
remote landscapes simply won’t support it. But
that doesn’t mean we can’t provide consistent,
high throughput connectivity to these places and
the people who live there. Where the fiber ends –
that’s where a strong wireless link begins.
I’ll give you two examples. In rural North
Dakota, farmers and small businesses rely on
Red River Communications for Internet access.
Red River was already delivering high speed,
low latency connectivity to various communities
through fiber. Even so, demand for throughput
was exceeding network capacity. To expand its
reach to more customers in far-flung parts of
the state – regions it traditionally couldn’t reach
with fiber – the company used our PTP and PMP
wireless backhaul links and brought the same
high-quality connectivity to those who otherwise
would have never had access.
The second example is near and dear tome. Let
alone fiber, nearly everything comes to an end in
the ruggedmountains of Nepal. Yet, there aremany
villages and communities in this regionwho just
as well need reliable Internet for health care and
education opportunities. I amproud to say our PMP
solutions provide high-quality wireless connections
to 150 of theworld’smost remote villages in Nepal.
The lesson I’d like to impart here is that
everyone, everywhere should have access to the
same standard of quality that fiber can provide.
And with wireless backhaul, this is all possible. o
10 WISPAPALOOZA 2016 • OCTOBER 11-13, 2016
What Happens Where the Fiber Ends?
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DAY2
By Atul Bhatnagar, President and CEO, Cambium Networks
co-chair of theWISPAPALOOZA Agenda
Committee and CEO of Wisper ISP.
And finally, the President’s Awards of
Excellence are awards of merit given to up to 10
people per year, for doing more instead of less,
and putting in the extra time and commitment
to make a positive effect on the industry. As the
name suggests, the winners for this award are
selected byWISPA president Alex Phillips. The
2016 winners are: Elizabeth Bowles, Jimmy Carr,
Arielle Coffey, Fred Goldstein, Brian Gray, Aaron
Larson, Forbes Mercy, Layne Sisk, Ari Starch and
Nathan Stooke. o
AWARDS, continued from page 8