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Nextlink is one of the largest owners and users of CBRS spectrum
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The company also has close to 80,000 fiber passings in development
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CEO Bill Baker compared the costs of fixed wireless and fiber
CONNECT(X) ATLANTA — Nextlink Internet does both fixed wireless access (FWA) as well as fiber deployments, putting CEO Bill Baker in a good position to discuss their relative merits.
Delivering a Connect(X) keynote Wednesday, Baker said he founded Nextlink in 2012 in rural areas in North Texas. The company now operates in six states and is one of the largest owners and users of CBRS spectrum for FWA.
Of about 3,000 active towers in Nextlink’s footprint, the company has built about 1,500 structures. The company often relies on existing construction. “I’m in church steeples, school buildings, water tanks, grain siloes,” said Baker.
CBRS spectrum allows Nextlink to provide gig service as far as a 5-mile radius. “Tarana has really moved the needle when it comes to fixed wireless,” said Baker.
He said if there’s middle-mile infrastructure and vertical infrastructure to hang radios in a given area, Nextlink can provide FWA in a matter of days. “Conversely if there’s no middle mile, no vertical infrastructure, that’s a different beast,” he said. In that case, deploying FWA takes more time.
Fiber
In 2017, Nextlink moved into fiber, with its first market being a Dallas suburb. The company now has close to 80,000 fiber passings in development.
Baker said that even though it takes a lot of work to build infrastructure for FWA, doing fiber has its own challenges, largely because of permitting requirements, deployment costs and educating local governments and citizens.
You would assume that small, rural towns would be dying of thirst for fiber. But apparently, that is not always the case.
“Sometimes, they’re happy with their DSL 10 megs. In a rural environment you only have a very small percentage of people buying your fastest plan,” said Baker. “The take rates in these areas are good, but they’re not radically high. There’s a whole educational aspect that goes into it.”
A lot of people in rural areas have invested in Starlink, or they’re happy with their ILEC, he said.
“At the end of the day, you’re just tremendously sensitive to your costs for deployments. There’s a big difference between subsidized and non-subsidized. You can’t go back if your take rates are low or if interest rates go up,” said Baker.
Costs
Of course, one of the big differences between FWA and fiber is the cost of deployment.
According to Nextlink, the cost to deploy FWA is about $1,000 per subscriber compared to fiber, which can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 per passing.
Baker showed the below slide, comparing FWA and fiber from Nextlink’s perspective.
