Wireless and the Stimulus Bill: A Tough Road?

WiMAX and Wi-Fi Will Need to Educate to Grab a Piece of the Stimulus Pie

Showing Wireless Can Fit the Mandate

The economics present in wireless can fulfill the basic mandate of the stimulus bill: to get as much broadband as possible out to as many people as possible that don’t have it now. Demonstrating this is critical when there’s only so much funding to go around, meaning that wide swaths of the most sparsely populated areas might get left behind. “The really truly rural areas, a lot of them are just not that different from 50 years ago or 100 years ago,” said Cubley. “It’s farming, not a lot of industry and no opportunity unless you want to be a farmer or rancher. And someone wouldn't locate a business there, and employees wouldn't move there. The only ones that are growing are the ones that have solved the problem of getting communications going.

That’s because it doesn’t matter if a manufacturing plant is 200 miles from a city, or right in a city — as long as the communications are stable and can support modern business processes. “It's almost like water was 100 years ago,” said Cubley. “Places will offer almost anything in the way of incentives to get broadband because if they can get the community to grow, property values grow and opportunities grow.”

Deployment Scenarios

At least one analyst is bullish on wireless prospects: “The ARRA represents a windfall for wireless service providers as well as for satellite service providers,” said Stan Schatt, analyst at ABI Research. “It will have an enormous impact on Wi-Fi and wireless broadband vendors. It will also immediately benefit a number of specific vertical industries including health care, education, homeland security, the environment, and the nation’s electricity infrastructure.”

There are enough successful use cases to sway those holding the purse strings. For instance, to counter the LECs, ERF can show that it is effectively partnering with municipalities in a successful public-private partnership. It has an agreement with the state of Louisiana where it can use state police towers free of charge in return for providing statewide bandwidth to municipal departments. Then it can sell wireless broadband to local citizens. The city wins; ERF has a viable business case; and no one has to worry about bureaucrats getting into the telecom business.

For its part, Alvarion won a contract to provide WiMAX equipment for an RUS-funded project earlier this year with Main Street Broadband LLC, which received $34 million in funding for deployment in 66 markets covering 129 rural communities in Florida and Georgia.

Schatt points out that success also will hinge on showing how wireless offers some unique applications. In health care for instance, Wi-Fi-enabled mobile devices and sensors, communications systems linking health networks, telepresence, wireless LAN equipment, and Wi-Fi-enabled video surveillance systems are all becoming must-haves, a boon for WISPs looking to bring that capability to rural hospitals on a municipal level.

“There are plenty of unique opportunities for wireless, and I think the agencies will see that as long as enough supporting and expository materials are submitted with the application,” said Sharma. “Education is going to be critical.”

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