How Utilities Can Leverage Last Mile Wireless
We’re now in the age of the customer experience (CX), where service providers are continuously challenged to meet rising customer expectations.
The fact is that utility consumers today expect to receive fast and reliable service and support wherever they are located. This holds true for customers of water and waste treatment centers, as well as with electricity, telephone, broadband, or any other type of utility.
On one hand, service providers need to provide always-on customer service. At the same time, providers need to track distribution and perform real-time monitoring. This will be especially important as the industry continues to embrace digital transformation, and IoT deployments.
For regulated companies located in rural areas, this is often easier said than done. Establishing last-mile connectivity can be very difficult due to geographical, budgetary, and subscriber-related issues.
Making matters more complicated, utilities typically have limited communications budgets. Merely reaching customers is one thing. Providing QoS can be quite another challenge altogether.
Enabling Last-Mile Connectivity with Fixed Wireless
Under ideal conditions, utilities may choose to establish communications networks via fiber, DSL or 4G LTE. Rural networks, however, are often too sparsely populated to justify a costly fiber build. In some cases, it can even be impossible due to geographical restrictions.
As such, there is growing interest in fixed wireless for establishing last-mile point-to-point wireless connectivity to subscribers. Using fixed wireless, it’s possible to establish speeds upwards of 25 Mbps. Fixed wireless can serve as a viable communications system for both residential and business customers.
Selecting the Right Antenna
The tower is only one piece of the puzzle when trying to establish last-mile rural connectivity. Utilities also need to ensure that they’re using the right type of antennas. The antenna plays a critical role in ensuring strong and reliable connectivity.
Advancements in spectrum allocation, it should be noted, have opened many options for rural providers when setting up voice, IoT connectivity, or any other type of application.
Today, providers can leverage both the 5-GHz unlicensed Wi-Fi band, as well as the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). The CBRS band, it should be noted, offers 150 MHz of shared spectrum between 3550 and 3700 MHz.
KP Performance offers a full range of powerful and cost-effective 3 GHz and 5 GHz antennas. For more information about how KP Performance can help meet your connectivity requirements, contact the team today.
