First Mile Access Networks and Enabling Technologies

Performance of 802.11 Standards in First Mile Access

The first mile area is touted to grow tremendously in the next decade or so, because of its direct proximity to consumers and end users. Considering this, optical fiber would be the best solution in the first/last mile. However, the costs of laying an optical fiber combined with the difficulties of laying fiber at certain locations (for instance, in areas requiring right of way) have created a tremendous potential for wireless networking in the last mile. Because here we are talking about wireless networks to the end users, we are basically assuming that a wired network exists to the curb, and its from the curb to the end user that we need this wireless network platform. It saves us the deployment ...