The future of fixed wireless broadband

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › The future of fixed wireless broadband

mdav056

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#205674 22-Nov-2016 21:49

Does anyone have any idea or information about the future of Spark fixed wireless broadband? Will it likely to go to 4.5G or even 5G at some stage? Would such a change mean replacing the Huawei 325 modem? I've got another 11 mo to go on contract with this, but fibre is being laid outside now, and I wanted to consider what to do in the future.

gml

tdgeek

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#1675724 22-Nov-2016 22:25

It has a place. Its not the be all and end all. Spark I believe, adds customers to its towers, but to a level that avoids congestion. If you get DSL at 5/1 and Wireless gets you 60/8 but at times 30/3 thats a gain. Or you can get 5/1 forever.

Talkiet

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#1675741 22-Nov-2016 23:11

Fibre is better than Fixed Wireless Access if you can get it. If there's fibre being laid now then consider yourself lucky and sign up when you can.

No-one that knows about our plans for 4.5 and 5G will tell you anything about the timeframes or services it may be offered over to help you make a decision...

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

jonb

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#1675745 22-Nov-2016 23:32

Pretty much a zero chance of any meaningful 4.5g or 5g in NZ within the next 11 months, as the 4g network is one of a world leader in real world speeds,compared to other countries. Any future generation would require a new modem though. The most likely immediate upgrade is channel bonding - using the 700mhz and 1800mhz 4g bands together for increased bandwidtg, I don't know if current modem would be able to take advantage of that or not, when available. The fibre being laid outside now will take a good few months to go live, unless you have pressing data cap issues on the fixed wireless then just re-assess when the contract is up.

sbiddle

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#1675759 23-Nov-2016 07:16

Considering 5G doesn't yet exist there certainly won't be a 5G network in NZ within the next 11 months.

Fibre will always be better than fixed wireless.

DarkShadow

1647 posts

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#1675848 23-Nov-2016 09:45

mdav056:

Does anyone have any idea or information about the future of Spark fixed wireless broadband? Will it likely to go to 4.5G or even 5G at some stage? Would such a change mean replacing the Huawei 325 modem? I've got another 11 mo to go on contract with this, but fibre is being laid outside now, and I wanted to consider what to do in the future.

Spark will let you break contract on the fixed wireless without fee if you upgrade to fibre with Spark. If you have option for fibre, of course go for it. (barring any consent issues and difficult neighbours)

coffeebaron

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#1675856 23-Nov-2016 09:54

jonb:

Pretty much a zero chance of any meaningful 4.5g or 5g in NZ within the next 11 months, as the 4g network is one of a world leader in real world speeds,compared to other countries. Any future generation would require a new modem though. The most likely immediate upgrade is channel bonding - using the 700mhz and 1800mhz 4g bands together for increased bandwidtg, I don't know if current modem would be able to take advantage of that or not, when available. The fibre being laid outside now will take a good few months to go live, unless you have pressing data cap issues on the fixed wireless then just re-assess when the contract is up.

"4.5g" is already here. I'm not sure if/how many sites Spark have, but Vodafone certainly have a large number of CA sites live. However the current B315 does not support carrier aggregation, so will mean new hardware at some stage to take advantage of 4.5g for fixed wireless broadband.

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