Let Them Eat Cellphones: Why Mobile Wireless is No Solution for Broadband on JSTOR

摘要

The policy of serving rural America through wireless broadband offers false hope for the future and promotes inefficient use of resources in the present, argues Professor Noam. Rural mobile broadband will never, he says, be a satisfactory substitute for wired (fiber or coaxial) systems for meeting foreseeable needs for increased throughput, creating a new “digital gap.” It is at best a temporary Band-Aid for addressing the increasingly uneven distribution of broadband quality. Eventually its inherently second-rate characteristics will drive the national network to an all-wired infrastructure. It would be better to recognize and address this now.