A Tale of Two Access Paths: 3G/4G Wireless Alternative

When I worked in an ILEC some of my customers would want me to deliver an alternate path to their building. These customers were often the victims of a backhoe, or some other local loop disaster. For over a century the phone network was designed like the airlines on a local scale. The central office was the feeder to the network and the local loops like a Dandelion sending off its seeds. However, as we move to massive mobility, the local loop may no longer be the best choice (see my Chicken Little rant here).

Local loop diversity is often hard to accomplish. The problem I experienced is that when the customer was looking for an alternate path through the local loop it was very hard to do. Often, the carriers could not be blamed, since the engineers and architects who built the building would often ignore the need for wiring in a building, and might bring the backhoe on premise to build the access as an after - thought. Using alternative service providers often did nothing to diversify the route since they would contract the ILEC and would be connected in the same CO to the local loop.

However, as the world has become data centric, the units of the network are no longer measured in voice grade equivalents but rather in T1 and Ethernet megabits.  

Some carriers provide access alternatives with a fixed wireless strategy. On July 21^st I am moderating a webinar for a wireless primary service from Sprint I would call a Primary Plus Service since it bundles its own alternate access with two different devices going to its 4G WiMAX network and it’s 3G EVDO backup system. The system maintains a redundant path on the two networks and as Sprint pointed out as more services come from the cloud the redundancy on the network increases.

Since their primary target is the enterprise primary service, the Sprint team did not want to emphasize the disaster recovery aspects of the service. The problem with that is very few T1 replacements I know of have been sold with a bundled backup system. Additionally, this is a flat rate service at speeds above a T1. While Sprint is not looking to sell SIP Trunking, I believe many of our PBX customers will find this alternative path useful in directing their VoIP services.

Sprint does sell the service with SLAs on uptime and MPLS QoS so the service competes at the same level of wireline T1s and Ethernet access methods. It does suffer from the devices requiring a truck roll installation at the customer’s facility so this is not a Frye’s/BestBuy sale.

Sprint’s been getting traction with companies that have remote branch offices and retailers. 

Personally, I think the webinar would benefit from the Enterprise Datacom / Telecom engineer asking their questions.   For all those long suffering with local loop worries, let’s see if we can dissipate them in the air.

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