Considerations Around Wireless Net Neutrality:The Few Vs. the Many | Nielsen Wire

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Considerations Around Wireless Net Neutrality: The Few Vs. the Many
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October 12, 2009 One Comment
Roger Entner, Senior Vice President, Research and Insights, Telecom Practice

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski laid out his priorities for the wireless industry at the CTIA IT event last Wednesday. He wants to:

Bring more spectrum to market to handle rapidly increasing demand for wireless data
Remove red tape to allow wireless carriers to expand networks faster
Conduct the regulatory process at the FCC more openly and on a fact-based, data-driven basis
Codify and enforce net neutrality with special considerations to wireless
I am sure the wireless industry is welcoming the first three priorities of the new Chairman. They represent a welcome and overdue recognition of the situation we are in – more than 270 million American wireless subscribers and more than 42 million of them using smartphones to access the Internet. While the discussion continues about the need for the codification of net neutrality for wireless, it is very encouraging that Chairman Genachowski has recognized that wireless networks deserve special consideration.

Some examples:

Wireless data networks that are available to most Americans have only modest throughput.
Today’s technology allows CDMA network operators (Verizon Wireless and Sprint) to provide a theoretical maximum throughput of 2.4 to 3.1 Mbit/sec and UMTS carriers (AT&T and T-Mobile) a combined theoretical maximum of 3.6 Mbit/sec. For simplicity sake, let’s assume the throughput of a particular cell site sector to be 3.6 Mbit/sec. This theoretical maximum is achievable if only one person uses the cell sector and is standing next to the antenna. The farther the person is from the tower or the more mitigating ...

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