MARCH 2017

Evaluating 5G Wireless Technology as
a Complement or Substitute for Wireline
Broadband

Larry D. Thompson, PE
CEO
605-995-1740
larry.thompson@vantagepnt.com
Warren H. Vande Stadt
Senior Technology Leader
605-995-1770
warren.vandestadt@vantagepnt.com

 This report was originally filed with the FCC in February 2017. Since filing, simplifications and
updates have been made; however these revisions do not significantly alter it’s content or
conclusions.
Note that the original paper included a list of questions to be vetted when considering any 5G
proposal, especially for those determining the best use of limited investment resources for
meeting both current demand and anticipated growth over the life of network assets. This set of
questions is not included here but is available within the original report at the link below.
The original report as filed with the FCC is available at:
https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1021310720678/02.13.17%20FCC%20Ex%20ParteNTCA%20Letter%20Submitting%202017%20Technical%20Paper%2C%20WC%2010-90.pdf

 Table of Contents
Executive Summary

5 

Broadband Today and Tomorrow

9 

User Demands
The Future of Broadband
Validating 5G Wireless Capabilities
What Is 5G?

9 
11 
13 
13 

Revolutionary or Evolutionary?

13 

Understanding and Unpacking the Hype

13 

Practical Throughput
Three Ways to Get More Broadband With Wireless

14 
15 

Method 1: Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio

15 

Method 2: More Spectrum

16 

Millimeter Wave Shortcomings

16 

Re-use Spectrum in the Same Cell (MIMO); Diminishing Returns

17 

Channel Concatenation, HetNets Complexity

18 

Method 3: Fewer Users per Cell

18 

Shortcomings of Closer Cell Spacing

19 

Many Additional Cell Densification Challenges

19 

Does 5G Have Enough Capacity?

20 

A 5G Capacity Example

20 

Oversubscription Increasingly Difficult on Shared Wireless Networks

21 

What Can 5G Do For Rural?

21 

Assessing the Economics of 5G Wireless Deployments

25 

Town Capital Expenditure (CapEx) Considerations

25 

Rural CapEx Considerations

26 

Operational Expense (OpEx) Considerations

27 

Author Biographies

29 

 Table of Figures
Figure 1 – Jakob Nielsen – Predicted Broadband Demands ...................................................... 12 
Figure 2 – Typical LTE Throughput vs. Distance ........................................................................ 15 
Figure 3 – Portion of Radio Spectrum Available for Broadband ................................................. 17 
Figure 4 – FCC – Adopted Broadband Performance Tiers for CAF Phase II Funding ............... 20 
Figure 5 – Spectrum vs. Range Comparison .............................................................................. 22 

 Executive Summary
The Internet has had profound impacts on nearly every area of our lives, including education,
retail, healthcare, public safety, and entertainment. The Internet has transformed how we
communicate, the size and scope of our global economy, and even our political system. We are
on the cusp of the next Internet evolution – the Internet of Things. Over the next 10 years, the
Internet will evolve into a network that overwhelmingly connects “things” rather than people.
Customers will continue to demand faster speeds and higher capacities as telehealth becomes
more commonplace as a means of medical care, as education increasingly migrates online, as
Ultra High Definition TV (UHDTV) becomes commonplace, and with the dramatic growth of
connected devices of all kinds needing Internet access.
When considering the most effective and efficient use of public and/or private resources to invest
in networks, it is necessary to understand these current and future user demands to determine
the type of networks needed to meet these increasing demands over the life of the network assets.
As providers of all kind compete for consumers, not all broadband technologies are created equal.
Some broadband access technologies offer the promise of mobility – an important factor for many
consumers. Others can be installed quickly and at somewhat lesser cost upfront, but their ongoing
costs may be high – and the need may soon arise to reinvest in the network if demand is expected
to increase, limiting or eviscerating any upfront cost savings. Still others are better suited to meet
consumer and business broadband demands of the future.
Satellite broadband, for example, will continue to suffer from limitations that are difficult or
impossible to overcome if one is attempting to keep pace with the many applications that drive
consumer demand.1 Meanwhile, terrestrial wireless carriers have pinned much of their hopes on
new, emerging standards often referred to as 5th Generation or “5G” wireless technology. In fact,
large wireless companies are already hyping so-called “5G” deployments, despite the fact that we
are years away from even just a 5G standard, let alone deployment. Today, 5G is primarily a
marketing term, and often a misleading one. When the average consumer hears about a “5G”
deployment, the consumer may assume it means that gigabit cell phones are around the corner.
But this is not the case. Companies are misusing “5G” today to describe small cell 4G (4th
Generation) technology being used to fill gaps or relieve congestion, or for technology to provide
faster indoor-only wireless connections using millimeter wave spectrum for or in competition with
Wi-Fi.
An engineering analysis indicates that true 5G wireless technologies will, like their predecessor
technologies, be an important and very useful complement to wireline networks; certainly in the
mobile context, it is reasonable to expect significant consumer demand for services that offer the
promise of higher speeds and greater reliability. And, to be clear, there will be discrete situations
in which the use of 5G in connection with fixed wireless offerings will be useful and necessary to

1

Analysis of Satellite-Based Telecommunications and Broadband Services, Vantage Point Solutions,
November 2013. (https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7520956713.pdf)

5

 extend service initially or perhaps to enable service to certain locations that are unlikely to ever
receive wireline service in the near future due to construction costs or some other factor.
But from a technical perspective, even in a fixed context, wireless technologies should be viewed
as a complement – a tool in a toolkit – rather than a viable widespread substitute for wireline
broadband networks. In fact, newer wireless technologies will rely more heavily than any
predecessor wireless technology upon far deeper penetration of wireline facilities. Undoubtedly,
5G wireless technologies will result in better broadband performance than 4G wireless
technologies and will offer much promise as a mobile complement to fixed services, but they still
will not be the right choice for delivering the rapidly increasing broadband demanded by
thousands or millions of households and businesses across America.
Previous analysis of 4th generation wireless networks2 clearly demonstrated how these networks,
even with generous capacity assumptions for the future, will have limited broadband capabilities,
and inevitably will fail to carry the fixed broadband experience that has been and will be demanded
by subscribers accustomed to their wireline counterparts. Although there is understandably much
anticipation today about phenomenal possible speeds for 5G wireless networks tomorrow, they
will continue to have technical shortcomings that will, like their predecessor wireless networks,
render them very useful complements but poor substitutes for wireline broadband. These
technical challenges include:
●

●
●

●

Spectral limitations: 5G networks will require massive amounts of spectrum to accomplish
their target speeds. At the lower frequencies traditionally used for wide area coverage,
there is not enough spectrum. At the very high frequencies proposed for 5G where there
may be enough spectrum, the RF signal does not propagate far enough to be practical for
any wide area coverage. This is particularly important in rural areas where customer
concentration is far, far less than what can be expected in densely populated urban areas
where 5G may offer greater promise.
Access Network Sharing: This is not a good solution for continuous-bit-rate (CBR) traffic
such as video, which will make up 82% of Internet traffic by 2020.
Economics: When compared to a 5G network that can deliver significant bandwidth using
very high, very short-haul frequencies, Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) is often less
expensive and will have lower operational costs. This is particularly true when one
considers how much fiber deployment will be needed very close to each user to merely
enable 5G.
Reliability: Wireless is inherently less reliable than wireline, with significantly increased
potential for impairments with the very high frequencies required by 5G.

All broadband providers today – wired and wireless alike – realize that the way to increase
broadband capability is to increase the amount of fiber in their network. Landline providers are
replacing their copper cable with fiber, cable operators are replacing their coax cable with fiber,

2

Wireless Broadband is Not a Viable Substitute for Wireline Broadband, Vantage Point Solutions, March
2015. (http://www.ntca.org/images/stories/Documents/fixedwirelesswhitepaper.pdf)

6

 and even wireless providers are actually replacing their wireless networks with fiber by placing
their towers (or small cells) closer to the customer.
Today, wireless networks rely heavily on the wireline network, and this reliance will only increase
with 5G since only a small portion of the last-mile customer connection (i.e., the “local loop”) will
use wireless technologies. 5G networks are predominantly wireline deep fiber networks,3 with
only a very small portion of their network using a wireless technology. This small wireless portion
of the network determines the ultimate broadband capacity of the network, since it is the network
bottleneck. As an analogy, we all have been on a multilane highway when road construction or
an accident required traffic to be funneled into a single lane. This is similar to what happens when
the broadband capacity of a fiber is constricted by a 5G wireless network when serving a
customer.
In an attempt to address such challenges, there are three basic ways broadband capacity can be
increased in wireless networks from a technical perspective. These are:
1. Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio to permit better modulation techniques
2. More spectrum – or more re-use of the same spectrum in the same cell
3. Fewer users per cell
The transmit power allowed is controlled by federal regulation. Noise and interference will not
improve, and in fact will only worsen as more and more transmitters are added in the closely
spaced adjacent cells. Without improvement of the former over the latter, higher efficiency
modulation techniques would only be usable by a very few cell users, providing little improvement
in overall capacity. Because of this, 5G wireless increases the broadband capabilities through the
use of more spectrum and fewer users per cell. Unfortunately, the only new spectrum available
for use by 5G is so high in frequency that the propagation loss and environmental impacts are
extremely significant. These high frequencies also have poor penetration capabilities.
To overcome these shortcomings, the 5G wireless cells must be placed very close to the customer
(often within 300 to 500 feet), which makes 5G particularly impractical for most rural applications.
In the following pages, we explore how one can assess and validate the capabilities of proposed
5G wireless network deployments in real world environments and determine where they may or
may not be practical or economical to deploy, as well as whether they will indeed fulfill the
consumer demand they purport to achieve. But first, we begin by determining what broadband
speed and capacity a broadband network needs to deliver to meet customer needs and be
competitive in the future.

3

A “deep fiber network” is one that is predominantly fiber where the fiber from the central office either
terminates at the customer premises or terminates close to the customer premises.

7

  

Broadband Today and Tomorrow
In a previous whitepaper, Vantage Point Solutions described the specific technical metrics that
defined high quality broadband, which are:4
●
●
●
●
●

High Speed
Low Latency
High Capacity
High Reliability
Economical and Scalable

Although all five metrics are important for broadband networks of the future, we will focus primarily
on the speed and capacity requirements in this section. This will help us better understand what
will be required from a 5G network to meet the broadband needs of a single customer – and many
customers over wide service areas.

User Demands
The Internet connects people and machines throughout the world and has changed the way we
communicate, educate, provide healthcare, and buy and sell goods. In recent years, we have
seen the launch and rampant growth of e-commerce sites like Amazon, sites that are used for
both news and social purposes like Facebook and Twitter, video communications services like
Skype, and video streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube, as well as Instagram,
Snapchat, and hundreds of other sites and applications we take for granted today. The Internet
of Things (IoT), smart grid and smart city applications, and distance learning and telemedicine
functions are also only in nascent stages of anticipated exponential growth. Cisco believes that
Internet traffic will continue to grow by 22% annually through the year 2020.5 In three short years,
it is estimated that there will be 26.3B devices connected to the Internet6 and the average US
household will have 12.18 devices.7
Understanding traffic patterns and demands on the Internet will help us better understand what
type of network is best suited to deliver the traffic. Applications that have become a part of our
everyday lives and require quality broadband connections include:
●

Distance Learning - There are hundreds of online options available for primary, secondary,
and postsecondary schools. These opportunities expand the reach of the teacher and

4

Wireless Broadband is Not a Viable Substitute for Wireline Broadband, Vantage Point Solutions, March
2015, pg. 7-10. (http://www.ntca.org/images/stories/Documents/fixedwirelesswhitepaper.pdf)
5
The Zettabyte Era: Trends and Analysis, June 2016, Cisco, pg. 3.
(http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/vnihyperconnectivity-wp.html)
6
The Zettabyte Era: Trends and Analysis, June 2016, Cisco, pg. 2.
7
The Zettabyte Era: Trends and Analysis, June 2016, Cisco, pg. 6.

9

 ●

●

●

●

provide educational options for the student that were not previously available. Some
colleges, such as the University of Phoenix and Liberty University, have many more online
students than on their campus. Distance learning is becoming increasingly important,
particularly in rural areas where access to quality schools and teachers locally, especially
in diverse or technical disciplines, is not always possible.
Healthcare - Remote telemedicine8 has the promise of dramatically improving the quality
of healthcare especially for those in rural areas that do not have easy access to doctors
or hospitals. Telemedicine can not only provide patient monitoring, but can shave hours
off the critical time between a medical emergency and the patient’s treatment.
Video Chat and Video Conferencing - Person-to-person and business-to-business
communication is moving from voice to rich multimedia methods. Online video tools such
as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Hangouts allow people and employees to meet without
being physically present.9
Entertainment - Netflix accounts for more than one-third of all Internet traffic in North
America.10 Additionally, other streaming video providers such as Amazon Video, Hulu,
YouTube, and traditional broadcasters have large shares of the Internet traffic. The
broadband speed requirements for these on-demand streams are increasing as video
resolutions increase from high-definition to ultra-high-definition (UHD).11 According to
Netflix, UHD streams require 25 Mbps per stream.12 Therefore, if different members of a
household were watching UHD on two different devices, 50 Mbps would be required just
for these two streams.
Cloud Computing - Microsoft cloud products are predicted to be 30% of their revenue by
2018 and other platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) are experiencing large
revenue growth.13

Many of the broadband drivers including distance learning, remote telemedicine, video
conferencing and entertainment involve the delivery of video over the Internet. Cisco believes that
IP video traffic will account for 82 percent of the Internet traffic by 2020.14 This is significant, since
some network technologies are better suited than others for delivering continuous-bit-rate
applications such as video. Networks that dedicate capacity to each customer, as is the case with

8

According to the American Telemedicine Association, telemedicine and telehealth can involve
“Videoconferencing, transmission of still images, e-health including patient portals, remote monitoring of
vital signs, continuing medical education and nursing call centers are all considered part of telemedicine
and telehealth.” (http://thesource.americantelemed.org/resources/telemedicine-glossary)
9
15 Trends Every Business Leader Should Watch in 2017, Fortune, Chirag Kulkarni, January 3, 2017.
(http://fortune.com/2017/01/03/2017-tech-trends/)
10
More than a Third of North American Internet Traffic is on Netflix, Speed Matters, June 27, 2016
(http://www.speedmatters.org/news/more-third-of-north-american-internet-traffic-on-netflix).
11
1080p high definition video has a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080. Ultra-high-definition video has a
resolution of 3,840 by 2,160.
12
Internet Connection Speed Recommendations, Netflix website.
(https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306?ui_action=kb-article-popular-categories)
13
Roundup of Cloud Computing Forecasts and Market Estimates 2016, Forbes, Louis Columbus, March
13, 2016. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2016/03/13/roundup-of-cloud-computing-forecastsand-market-estimates-2016/#4472fbb074b0)
14
The Zettabyte Era: Trends and Analysis, June 2016, Cisco, pg. 15.

10

 most landline technologies, are better suited to deliver this type of traffic than networks that share
capacity among many users. Continuous-bit-rate traffic such as video will increasingly dominate
the Internet. Wireless networks share capacity among many users. Delivering video to a customer
continuously for a two hour movie means that capacity is not available during this time for another
user. This limitation is discussed later in more detail.

The Future of Broadband
Broadband providers of all kinds continue to invest heavily in their networks to help ensure they
are prepared to meet the customer demands of the future. Charter Communications Chairman
and CEO Tom Rutledge has said that the cable operator is “moving toward a future where
broadband speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second are possible.”15 Verizon soon will be offering
a 750 Mbps tier in their FIOS markets in NYC, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston.16 AT&T
currently is offering gigabit services in many of their markets and has it planned for many more,17
while Comcast is offering a 2 Gbps service in many of their markets.18 Google Fiber offers 1 Gbps
in several cities today.19
Nielsen’s law, theorized by Jakob Nielsen, PhD20 in 1998, states that broadband bandwidth
demand grows at a rate of 50% a year for high-end users.21 The broadband connection experience
over the years and its reasonable projection shown in supports his theory that broadband speeds
can be expected to continue to rise at similar rates.22
Although some would argue that 1 Gbps already is common today in larger cities, Figure 1
projects it to be commonly available before 2020.

15

Charter Eyes 10Gbps Broadband, Multichannel News, December 6, 2016.
(http://www.multichannel.com/news/cable-operators/charter-eyes-10gbps-broadband/409489)
16
Verizon Goes on the Offensive with Cable, Launches 750 Mbps Symmetrical Service, Telecompetitor,
January 12, 2017. (http://www.telecompetitor.com/verizon-goes-on-the-offensive-with-cable-launches750-mbps-symmetrical-service)
17
AT&T names 11 new metro areas for gigabit fiber Internet, ARS Technica, October 5, 2016.
(https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/att-names-11-new-metro-areas-for-gigabit-fiberinternet/)
18
Comcast’s 2Gbps Internet costs $300 a month with $1,000 startup fees, ARS Technica, July 13, 2015.
(https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/comcasts-2gbps-internet-costs-300-a-month-with-1000startup-fees/)
19
Google Fiber Website. (https://fiber.google.com/about/)
20
Nielsen Norman Group website. (https://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/)
21
Nielsen’s Law of Internet Bandwidth, Jakob Nielsen, Updated 2016.
(https://www.nngroup.com/articles/law-of-bandwidth)
22
Nielsen Norman Group website. (https://www.nngroup.com/people/jakob-nielsen/)

11

 Figure 1 – Jakob Nielsen – Predicted Broadband Demands
What is commonly available, as shown in Figure 1, is greater than the median broadband speed
across all consumers. The FCC reported23 that the median speed in September 2015 was 41
Mbps, which represented an increase of 28% increase over the previous year’s median speed of
32 Mbps. This is consistent with other measurements published by the FCC.24 If we were to
assume that the growth rate will continue at a rate of 28% annually, 100-150 Mbps will be the
median average speed when 5G networks become available. If we assume that the equipment
life expectancy will be 8 years, the median broadband speed would be 1 Gbps at the equipment
end of life if it were installed in 2020.
With this as a backdrop, we will analyze the broadband capabilities of 5G networks that are
needed to satisfy this sort of demand for greater speeds and capacity.

23

2016 Measuring Broadband America Fixed Broadband Report, Federal Communications Commission,
pg.
15.
(http://data.fcc.gov/download/measuring-broadband-america/2016/2016-Fixed-MeasuringBroadband-America-Report.pdf)
24
The Broadband Availability Gap, OBI Technical Paper No. 1, pg. 42 assumed an average annual growth
rate of 26%. (https://transition.fcc.gov/national-broadband-plan/broadband-availability-gap-paper.pdf)

12

 Validating 5G Wireless Capabilities
Vantage Point’s March 2015 paper on wireless technologies25 clearly demonstrated how 4th
generation wireless networks, even with generous capacity assumptions for the future, will have
limited broadband capabilities, and inevitably will be unable to match the fixed broadband
experience demanded by subscribers accustomed to their wireline counterparts. That paper also
explained how, when viewed from the perspective of meeting current and anticipated demand
growth over the life of the network assets, investment in wireline technologies typically
represented a far better use of limited investment resources. Since that time, much has been
promoted about phenomenal speeds to be supported by 5th Generation (5G) networks. We
therefore shall take a closer look.

What Is 5G?
Revolutionary or Evolutionary?
As we shall see, 5G may represent substantial progress, but it is still more evolutionary than
revolutionary. While it will provide benefits for consumers compared to 4G services, 5G is the
result of wireless technologies simply being driven by classic limits of physics to evolve naturally
from the previous generations in order to meet the rapidly growing broadband demand. It is
targeted primarily at and most effective in densely populated areas, and at very low-demand, very
occasional-use sensors and actuators that will amass with the forthcoming “Internet of Things”
(IoT). Our focus here is to explore 5G’s possible viability for high-capacity broadband wireless
substitution. For reasons we will discuss, 5G necessarily must evolve into very densely deployed
“small cells.” It thus is highly unlikely to replace 4G for coverage “out of town,” and it thus will not
be a solution for the “digital divide” affecting those areas.

Understanding and Unpacking the Hype
5G has been touted to provide speeds 100 times faster than 4th generation wireless, as high as
10 Gbps. These speeds indeed sound fantastic! But this assumes unrealistic conditions and
overlooks the critical fact that the capacity must be shared among multiple users. As we will show,
it is essential to look beyond the understandable hype and understand in the context of each
proposed deployment what 5G and other wireless technologies really can – and cannot – achieve.
Again, wireless technologies can play an important, and even essential, role in helping to fulfill
broadband objectives, especially in a complementary context for mobility purposes. But it is
necessary to take objective stock of what wireless can and cannot do on a widespread basis,
especially in rural areas and in the context of using certain kinds of applications.

25 Wireless

Broadband is Not a Viable Substitute for Wireline Broadband, Vantage Point Solutions, March
2015. (http://www.ntca.org/images/stories/Documents/fixedwirelesswhitepaper.pdf)

13

 Practical Throughput
Wireless vendors often promote their products by listing the fastest data connection rates
possible. However, these are theoretical rates that would be possible only in a lab environment,
and only for a single user who is located very close to the access point and able to utilize all of
the radio channel resources under ideal conditions. This is completely unrealistic for real world
dimensioning for capacity, and overstates an access point’s practical capacity by 500% or more.
This is because an access point cannot deliver peak speeds across its entire coverage area or
“cell.” Radio channel quality, and ergo its spectral efficiency26 and data rate ability, deteriorate
rapidly with distance, falling to half or less of peak at only 25% of the distance to the cell edge,27
as depicted in Figure 2. This represents roughly only 6% of the cell’s coverage area.
To determine a cell’s overall practical capacity for broadband, and thus to help evaluate the real
capability of any potential or proposed network deployment leveraging wireless technology, one
must consider the average of the experience possible among all users near and far.28 This is often
only 15-25% of the theoretical peak for a single user. When overheads29 are considered, the
useable capacity will typically be less than 75% of this value. It therefore is not unusual for the
actual throughput capacity to be only roughly 15% (75% of 15-25%) of its peak data connection
rate – that which is usually “hyped,” to assess the practical, sharable, usable throughput of a cell.

26

Spectral efficiency is a measure of how efficiently a wireless technology uses its allocated spectrum,
much like a farmer might measure productivity in bushels per acre. It is expressed in bits per second (bps)
carried per Hertz (Hz, or cycles per second) of spectrum available to the radio channel (i.e., bps/Hz). For
instance, a 10 MHz-wide radio channel carrying 10 Mbps of broadband traffic is performing with a spectral
efficiency of 1 bps/Hz. Peak spectral efficiency and ergo broadband speeds are available very close to the
access point, where the radio signal is very high compared to the surrounding interference and noise,
enough for the receiver to be able to decode all of the subtle changes in the complex modulations of the
radio signal that make the highest speeds possible. However this Signal to (Interference + Noise) Ratio or
“SINR,” and hence spectral efficiency, roll off as signal strength decays with distance. Worse, it does not
roll off linearly with distance.
27 A simplified definition of the cell edge, according to LTE standards body 3GPP, is the point at which a
user’s best available throughput is 5% of the total cell throughput. A practical definition would be the point
along a radial from the access point at which the signal to noise ratio has decayed to a value insufficient to
support useful decoding of the lowest order of modulation supported by the technology, (can be expected
to occur at a BER of around 0.1), even utilizing the highest available amount of Forward Error Correction
(FEC).
28
The sum of all data rates experienced by all users compared to the amount of spectrum available to the
cell, then, is the cell’s average or “cell spectral efficiency.” For an example, while the peak spectral efficiency
for a cell utilizing 4G LTE technology in the latest generally deployed 4x4 MIMO configuration is 16.3
bps/Hz, its average or cell spectral efficiency is only 2.67 bps/Hz. On a 10 MHz-wide downlink channel, this
results in a total practical cell data connection rate capacity – to be shared among all users – of only 26.7
Mbps, not 163 Mbps. After overheads [29], while peak throughputs occasionally experienced by a single
user could be much higher, the practical usable cell throughput – to be shared among all users near and
far, by which to dimension the cell for capacity, falls to 19 Mbps – again, not 163 Mbps.
29
TCP/IP and Forward Error Correction (FEC) overheads…

14

 Figure 2 – Typical LTE Throughput vs. Distance

Three Ways to Get More Broadband With Wireless
Physics limits any wireless technology’s ability to provide more broadband to three methods. As
mentioned previously, these are:
1. Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio
2. More spectrum
3. Fewer users per cell
We will address each of them and assess how 5G uses these three methods to provide more
bandwidth and some of the shortcomings that are introduced in the process.

Method 1: Improve the Signal to Noise Ratio
One way to increase the capacity of a radio channel or stream is to improve the relationship of
the signal level over the noise and interference,30 (i.e., improve the SINR31), in order to enable
better modulation techniques. FCC rules do not permit signal levels (transmitter powers) to
increase, and interference will only get worse with more and more transmitters, (ergo, SINRs will
30

The maximum capacity of a medium to reproduce information at its distant end was characterized in
1948 by mathematician Claude Shannon, in his landmark paper on information theory called A
Mathematical Theory of Communication. Shannon’s Law is still used today to define the theoretical
broadband capacity limit for a single wireless channel stream. The equation is as follows:

1
…where C is channel Capacity in bits per second, Bw is the Bandwidth in Hertz, S is the Signal power, and
N is the Noise power.
31
Noise in Shannon’s equation [30] includes all undesired signal, including the thermal noise floor occurring
naturally in electronic components, as well as the interference created by other unwanted transmitters and
re-radiators. Thus, the Signal/Noise ratio in the equation often is referred to as the Signal to (Interference
+ Noise) Ratio, or SINR.

15

 only deteriorate). Without SINR improvement, higher efficiency modulation techniques would only
be usable by a very few cell users. Therefore, while enabling the vendor to boast of higher
possible peak rates, in practice it only would provide limited improvement in the access point’s
overall practical capacity for broadband. Improving broadband performance must therefore be
accomplished by either more spectrum or fewer users per cell.

Method 2: More Spectrum
There is not enough spectrum in the frequency bands traditionally used by 4G networks (below 6
GHz) to facilitate larger channel bandwidths. Although some spectrum is being added with the
600 MHz auction, it is only a tiny fraction of what is required to support the 100x improvement
requirement for 5G. Spectrum quantity for mobile broadband indeed is slated to improve in the
next few years, however. As a result of its “Spectrum Frontiers” vote on July 14, 2016, the FCC
intends to release and re-purpose for mobile broadband 18 GHz of so-called Millimeter Wave
(mmW) spectrum – very, very high frequencies whose wavelengths32 are measured in millimeters
rather than meters, hence its moniker. These frequencies are in the 6 GHz to 80 GHz range.

Millimeter Wave Shortcomings
Figure 2 shows the spectrum available for fixed broadband that has been added since March
2015.33
One might wonder why these new mmW bands do not appear to improve the volume of spectrum
available for fixed broadband by any significant amount. This is because these bands always
have been available for fixed broadband, albeit some of them (39 and 80 GHz) only for point-topoint.
A trait of spectrum is that the higher it is in frequency, the less propagation and penetration power
it will have. Frequencies this high only can propagate to very short distances before decaying to
unusable levels; plus they are highly susceptible to fading due to diffraction by rain and moisture,
and even to absorption by oxygen molecules. The result is that their usable reliable range – even
on a clear day – is measured in the hundreds of feet, not in miles. This, along with the fact that
they do not penetrate buildings or other obstacles such as foliage, and must have an unobstructed
Line-of-Sight (LOS) path, has rendered them of little use for conventional “macro” cells. For all of
these reasons, they have not been considered usable to date for fixed broadband.

32

Wavelength is the distance between electromagnetic wavefronts as they propagate through space at the
speed of light. As light propagates at 300 million meters per second, a frequency’s wavelength can be found
by dividing this by the radio frequency. For instance, the wavelength for a 60 GHz radio carrier (60 thousand
million cycles per second) is 300 million meters per second divided by 60,000 million cycles per second, or
5 millimeters (0.005 meters). For comparison, a 600 MHz radio carrier, as is being auctioned for 4G mobility
currently, has a wavelength of a half a meter (0.5 meters).
33
For practicality the radio spectrum traditionally is shown on a quasi-logarithmic scale. Therefore, the
portions of bandwidth added in the Millimeter Wave band, while much larger in Hz than for bands in lower
frequencies, do not appear graphically as large as they would if displayed linearly.

16

 Figure 3 – Portion of Radio Spectrum Available for Broadband
Added or Pending Since 2015 (In Red)
The mmW spectrum will have channel widths on the order of ten times as wide as current
traditional cellular frequencies – which alone could result in up to a 10x improvement in access
point capacity. But the GSM Association touts 5G as having potentially a 100x improvement over
4G, targeting as much as 10 Gbps peak! It will take more than the addition of this spectrum, as
explained below.

Re-use Spectrum in the Same Cell (MIMO); Diminishing Returns
Reusing a frequency at the same place at the same time can give the appearance of more
spectrum quantity (i.e., more Bandwidth, for Method 2). In fact, this already is being done today
with the use of Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) air interfaces. It does, however, come with
diminishing returns.
Where signal strength is strong, MIMO can divide a user’s data into parallel streams using the
same frequency at the same time. “2x2” MIMO can nearly double peak throughput speeds, but it
only increases overall cell spectral efficiency by around 160%. 5G will permit up to 8x8 MIMO,
which will have four times as many antennas, receivers and transmitters, yet the overall cell
spectral efficiency compared to 2x2 is only barely doubled.
17

 As 5G coalesces, MIMO will continue to evolve. Advanced forms of MIMO called Multi-User MIMO
will use massive numbers of antennas at a site, which can form multiple individual beams to
separate users. This will permit using the same frequency at the same time to serve each of the
multiple users with capacity approaching what an otherwise conventional site might support in
total, and without the beams interfering with one another much. But again, the improvement in
overall cell throughput only goes up by a small fraction of the increase in the number of antennas,
and it requires much higher complexity and expense for both the access point and the user
equipment.

Channel Concatenation, HetNets Complexity
Because they are touted for 5G, we must mention the “heterogeneous network” configurations or
“HetNets” being contemplated. Development is in the works today to permit multiple channels
among the same or even different frequency bands to be concatenated, carrying additive portions
of a user’s data simultaneously. An example would be a developing standard called LTE-License
Assisted Access (LTE-LAA), which will concatenate the use of a conventional, licensed cellular
LTE channel with LTE deployed on the 5 GHz unlicensed band for best-effort overflow, to the
extent the unlicensed channel may be unimpaired and have capacity at the moment. In the
meantime, a similar but de facto “industry” standard has been developed largely by Qualcomm
and Verizon called LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U), which has just been approved by the FCC, and
which T-Mobile intends to implement immediately to aid in offloading its 4G network. While useful
for the wireless carrier, this will contribute to overcrowding of the 5 GHz unlicensed band used
mostly today for Wi-Fi.
Other standards are in development that would concatenate completely separate technologies
among bands, such as Licensed Wireless Access, which would concatenate use of LTE on
licensed spectra and Wi-Fi on unlicensed.
All of these “HetNet” techniques, of course, could provide more broadband simply by adding up
the capacity of individual streams. However there are enormous complexities to interworking and
reconciling these dissimilar and often competing networks and standards, which are anticipated
to be pre-5G propositions – nothing upon which one should stake a long term, publicly funded
commitment, until mmW bands and devices that can handle them finally begin to become
ubiquitously and globally standardized and licensed, with automated third-party channel
management in the case of shared-use spectrum. These are not anticipated to be generally
available for genuine 5G until after 2020.

Method 3: Fewer Users per Cell
The last means of increasing capacity for an entire system is by reducing the number of users per
cell. This is accomplished by placing cells closer and closer together, so that the same capacity
once afforded to a large coverage footprint with many users is duplicated to multiple smaller cells,
each serving a smaller number of users.
18

 This is nothing new. Since first generation cellular (1G), when cells were on 500 foot towers and
tens of miles apart, cells have been getting closer and closer together in order to increase
capacity. Today, 4G cells typically are placed every few blocks in urban areas. 5G’s “small cells”
are simply a natural evolution of this “cell-splitting” technique. And, as explained below, the laws
of physics indeed will necessitate that they be “small.”

Shortcomings of Closer Cell Spacing
A system’s overall capacity cannot be improved simply by moving the same tall, high-powered
cells closer together and serving only customers within their close-in, higher throughput coverage
areas depicted in Figure 1. For each cell’s capacity to be maintained, inter-site distance and
coverage overlaps must be planned carefully so as to keep interference to neighboring cells to a
minimum (i.e., to maintain each cell’s SINR, as discussed in Method 1.). Therefore, to “densify”
or place cells more closely together, signal strengths must be reduced by lowering transmitter
powers and antenna elevations. This forces the cells to be much smaller than they could be as
stand-alone cells.

Many Additional Cell Densification Challenges
In a 5G network, the resulting small cells indeed will need to be quite small. Moving cells closer
together is especially difficult if using currently available sub-6 GHz spectra that propagate “too
well” for dense small cell applications. Designs to meet the 5G bandwidth targets, and which also
accommodate future mmW propagation distances, have made their coverage areas typically less
than 1,000 feet in diameter, often even half of this, and only 20 or so feet off the ground, with
equipment to be deployed on streetlight and utility poles. Some estimates put 5G small cell
deployments at ten to as many as one hundred times the number of sites as their current 4G
macro-cell counterparts.
The obvious hurdles to such a dense deployment include the vastly increased need for backhaul
for so many cells so close together, particularly the dark fiber-optic cable required for most current
small cell configuration designs.34 All of these sites also will need power. Both of these can be
exceedingly difficult to coordinate and accomplish.

34

The term “small cells” is used herein to refer simply to a general category of tiny coverage area cells.
Small cells as a category can include various configurations, most of which require dark fiber for “fronthaul.”
These configuration include Outdoor Distributed Antenna Systems (O-DAS), Centralized - Radio Access
Networks (C-RAN) and virtualized Radio Access Network (vRAN). All of these have key portions of the
access point base station centralized, where it is backhauled to the Core network typically via Carrier
Ethernet over some medium, fiber, wireless or otherwise, but with dark fiber then required for “fronthaul”
from the centralized electronics to Remote Radio Units (RRUs) at the antennas. (Developing wireless
solutions for 5G backhaul will still struggle and in most cases fall short of being able to support the hundreds
of Gbps that will be required for 5G fronthaul.) Ironically, none of these configurations are technically true
“small cells.” A true “small cell” has all access point electronics in one place at the antenna location, (i.e.,
no fronthaul required), and is backhauled directly to the Core network, typically via Carrier Ethernet over
some medium.

19

 There are other issues to consider and confront as well in assessing and validating the ability of
a potential/proposed 5G wireless deployment to deliver on the promise of high-speed, highcapacity coverage. User devices will have to incorporate many bands, and with vastly expanded
MIMO capabilities. This will require software-tunable RF components and antennas, which just
now are emerging from labs, plus very capable device processors, none of which is expected to
be developed and generally available until after 2020.

Does 5G Have Enough Capacity?
A 5G Capacity Example
Let’s assume that 5G one day will be able to achieve its goal of 100x current 4G peak data rate
capability, as much as 10 Gbps peak data rate per small cell. Applying the practical cell throughput
factor developed previously of around 15%, this falls to around 1.5 Gbps of likely actual usable
throughput available per cell, to be shared among all users.
1.5 Gbps, even to be shared, certainly might seem like a lot today, when compared to today’s
typical broadband speed of around 41 Mbps, as discussed previously. But we need to remember
that the 5G technologies explored here will only be generally available after 2020. As further
discussed in this paper, it is reasonable to expect that median broadband speed will be
approaching 100-150 Mbps by that time, and will be 1 Gbps by the 5G equipment end of life if it
were installed in 2020. The FCC, in fact, will be including a 1 Gbps tier as part of their upcoming
CAF Phase II auction, as shown in Figure 4.35

Figure 4 – FCC – Adopted Broadband Performance Tiers for CAF Phase II Funding
The above further brings to light the notion of monthly usage volume, and its bearing on service
quality. Wireless carriers commonly have had to limit monthly usage as a means to limit
oversubscribing of their shared broadband resource. This however has not been typical of wireline
and particularly FTTP providers – those generally being the only ones that can offer higher than
100 Mbps service tiers today.

35

In the Matter of Connect America Fund ETC Annual Reports and Certifications Rural Broadband
Experiments, FCC 16-64, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, released May 26,
2016, page 9. (https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-16-64A1.pdf)

20

 Oversubscription Increasingly Difficult on Shared Wireless Networks
Continuous-bit-rate services such as video, which is critical for distance learning, telemedicine,
entertainment and other purposes, is driving a need to limit oversubscription of shared broadband
resources such as that of wireless today. In days when bursty web-browsing traffic dominated the
Internet, broadband capacity could be significantly oversubscribed. High-volume data streams
(such as video), on the other hand, require constant bit rates. This largely undermines, if not
defeats, any ability to oversubscribe a resource among active users. Today, each user often will
use a significant amount of network capacity for long periods of time.
Many of Vantage Point’s clients with fixed wireless operations are finding it difficult to
oversubscribe access point capacity by more than 5:1 today; and often have had to resort to nondiscriminatory limiting measures.36 This situation will only worsen as data demands, including but
not limited to IP video traffic, grow as projected by Cisco and others.
So how can 5G be expected to perform in meeting this demand? If 1 Gbps is a reasonable
household broadband service expectation within the 5G equipment’s service life, then tomorrow’s
maximum 5G small cell throughput cell capacity expectation on the order of 1.5 Gbps for that
timeframe – to be shared among all users, and which may seem plentiful today – will be a
mediocre if not very poor solution for tomorrow’s fixed broadband, with very poor median-toadvertised speed performance. If subscribers’ on-line vs. off-line behavior of tomorrow mirrors
today’s, and if an oversubscription rate of 5:1 can be maintained for 100-150 Mbps median service
in 2020, then it would appear that a best-possible-case 5G small cell may be able to serve as
many as 10-15 households. However, if only two users are active with a video or other, likely
constant-bit-rate application requiring 1 Gbps, then the small cell is in danger of serious
congestion, and/or will require throughput limiting – either of which will render it indeed a mediocre
if not very poor solution.

What Can 5G Do For Rural?
The extreme densification and short-haul small cell ranges that will be necessary to achieve 5G
generally will make it usable only in dense urban scenarios. This becomes obvious when
observing Figure 5, depicting the geographic limitations for small cells in rural environments.
Assuming a typical 500 foot coverage radius for small cells, this amounts to approximately 0.03
square miles of coverage for each.

36
Many are having to resort to platforms that limit all video streaming applications in a non-discriminatory
fashion from initially training-up to any high-definition throughput rates, in order to keep access points from
being hopelessly congested by video accessed by only a very small number of households per cell, and to
realize any kind of deployment cost-effectiveness. For their subscribers, though, the result of not being able
to stream HD or UHD streams, as their wireline counterpart subscribers can today, makes for a
comparatively mediocre wireless broadband experience.

21

 Figure 5 – Spectrum vs. Range Comparison 37
The digital divide is most common in rural America, and there it requires the most effort to
overcome. When considering the large distances and small cell sites, it becomes clear that 5G
wireless will not be viable on a widespread basis outside of towns with reasonably dense,
relatively compactly-settled populations.
This is not to say that 5G does not have an important role in discrete cases or applications as a
complement to fiber or as part of a diverse network deployment strategy that leverages both fiber
and wireless technologies to drive broadband deeper into rural areas. But the realities discussed
in this section make it clear that if 5G wireless is going to deliver on the claims of high speeds and
high capacity for which many hope, it will need to be a “deep fiber” network that is in fact very
similar to FTTP. Even if we were to consider 5G wireless in a sort of Wireless to the Premises
(WTTP) deployment for rural communities, and, even if 5G capacity somehow could be achieved
that could render small cells sufficient for meeting multiple households’ projected demands, it is
unclear why, when one is putting fiber so deep into the network to enable such speeds and to
overcome the capacity constraints identified previously, one would stop at the small cell rather

37

This is intended only to suggest relative ranges and coverage areas at FCC authorized power levels
among various single carrier frequencies at a common Receive Signal Level (RSL) and noise floor
throughout the coverage area, which may be above or below the lowest RSL at which a particular
technology can operate, assuming sufficient SINR. Actual range will vary depending upon the actual signal
level and quality targeted as well as numerous other factors, including power level transmitted, elevation of
transmitter and receiver antennas, directionality, gain and MIMO configuration of both the transmitting and
receiving antennas, terrain, clutter, manmade interference and atmospheric and electromagnetic
conditions, among others.

22

 than just delivering fiber to the premises a few hundred feet away – and thereby deliver the
promise of much higher speeds and availability without the same kinds of capacity limitations.

23

  

Assessing the Economics of 5G Wireless Deployments
Fiber optic networks have significantly more broadband capabilities than wireless networks. This
will not change in the future. Unlike wireless networks, fiber optic networks do not suffer from lineof-sight issues, obstacles, environmental effects or electromagnetic interference. To increase
broadband capacity and reliability, nearly all broadband providers – both wireline and wireless –
are replacing much or all of their copper and wireless networks with fiber. The broadband speed
and capacity of wireless networks are increasing as more and more of their network is replaced
with fiber. The remaining wireless portions of the network introduce a broadband bottleneck.
To minimize the broadband bottleneck in a wireless network, the wireless portion of the network
needs to be minimized by placing towers closer and closer to the user. As described previously,
future 5G wireless networks will only use wireless in a small portion of the network – probably the
last 300-500 feet of the network. When constructing a broadband network, one may consider
either a 5G network where fiber is run to within 300-500 feet of the customer premises, or simply
run fiber all the way to the user in a FTTP network. We will discuss the economics of these
approaches in the following sections.
Since the economics of a broadband deployment in a “town” environment is very different than
the economics of a deployment in a “country” rural environment, we will discuss these separately.
In the following section we focus on the local loop investment costs. By focusing only on the local
loop portion, we believe we are favoring the 5G wireless solution, since the central office electronic
costs for the 4G network has historically been considerably more than the central office costs
associated with a FTTP network. In addition, the cost of spectrum required for the 5G solution
has also been omitted from the analysis.

Town Capital Expenditure (CapEx) Considerations
For town deployments, a 5G cell could be placed on a small tower or pole such that 8-12 homes
would be reachable within 300-500 feet. This pole could be in an alleyway or located on the street
using a light pole or other structure. In a 5G wireless network, this cell is served by fiber from an
electronics location either in a central office or cabinet. This architecture is not unlike the FTTP
network where the last pedestal is connected by fiber back to the central office (or cabinet) and
may also serve 8-12 customers. The primary difference is the “drop” which is the last connection
into the customer premises. For the 5G network, the drop is a radio frequency (RF) signal from
the pole and for a FTTP network, it is a fiber optic cable from the last pedestal.
The cost to construct fiber from the central office to the pole for the 5G cell would be similar to the
cost of constructing fiber from the central office to the last pedestal in a FTTP network. The
differences in cost between the 5G network and the FTTP network would be primarily in the last
300-500 feet (i.e., the drop). In addition to the fiber drop and wireless drop, the customer premises
also requires some electronics to convert the fiber signal or radio frequency signal to something
usable to the customer, such as an Ethernet connection.
25

 We will first consider the cost of the electronics at the customer premises. The cost for FTTP
electronics (the ONT), the battery backup, grounding and installation is commonly $700-$800.
Similar to the FTTP network, the wireless network would also require a battery backup,
electronics, and grounding at the customer premises. The wireless electronics converts the radio
frequency to Ethernet (or Wi-Fi). Since the higher frequencies used for the 5G networks do not
penetrate obstacles, a pole may need to be installed at the customer premises to avoid trees or
other buildings. Because of this, the wireless electronics are often more expensive, on average,
than the FTTP electronics. Tree cover and other factors can dramatically increase the cost of the
5G electronics installation at the customer location.
The cost for materials and labor to install a fiber drop is typically $5 per foot (for buried or aerial).
Since the average fiber drop length in a town environment is 160 feet, the cost is typically $800
per customer. Therefore, the cost to install fiber drops to all 8-12 customers on a city block would
range from $6,000 to $10,000. A small tower and 5G cell site would cost $30,000-$50,000. The
cell site would also require commercial power and batteries if the wireless network was expected
to work during a power outage.
For 5G wireless, it appears that the customer premises electronics are at least as much as the
FTTP electronics and could be considerably more expensive. The drop cost for the FTTP network
is likely 25% of the cost of the 5G wireless drop. Also considering that the FTTP network can
deliver more than 100 times the speed and capacity of the 5G wireless network, the FTTP is a
considerably better value for a town environment if fixed broadband is the goal with the
assumptions above.
It should be noted that a 5G network can also be configured to operate as a mesh network. By
doing this, only a portion of the cell sites would need to be connected with fiber and the others
would use wireless backhaul to connect to the nearest cell site that is served by fiber. This would
reduce the cost of the fiber backhaul, but would increase the cost of the wireless electronics. In
addition, it would introduce another wireless broadband bottleneck into the network, where the
customer traffic from multiple cell sites could be aggregated together onto a single wireless
backhaul link. Any congestion experienced on the drop portion of the wireless network would only
be exacerbated on these wireless backhaul links.

Rural CapEx Considerations
The customer premises electronics costs for the rural area would be similar to the arguments
made for the town environments. However, in the rural environments it is common for the
customer to be located behind a tree shelterbelt which would more frequently require a pole to be
installed for the 5G wireless solution. This would make the customer premises electronics even
more expensive for the 5G wireless solution when compared to the FTTP solution.
In rural areas, the density of customers is measured in customers per square mile, not customers
per city block. For a 5G wireless network with a wireless drop length of only 500 feet, this would
26

 require each customer to have their own serving cell site. Therefore, the cost for the tower and
electronics could not be spread across 8-12 customers as was done in the town example. It would
cost $30,000-$50,000 per customer for the cell site alone. The fiber drop in a rural environment
is longer (may be 500 feet on average). A 500 foot drop that costs $5 per foot to install could cost
$2,500. Even though this drop cost is more than the town environment, it is obviously far less than
the cost to install a 5G cell site to serve this single customer.
In a rural environment such as this, a wireless backhaul would not be practical in the mmW spectra
due to the large distances between cell sites.

Operational Expense (OpEx) Considerations
Apart from the initial capital expense advantage that a FTTP network appears to have under the
scenarios outlined above, it likely also has operational expense savings. Some of these include:








Customer Premises Electronics – Both FTTP and the 5G networks have electronics and
a battery at the customer premises. However, it would be expected that the FTTP
electronics would have a longer useful life simply due to the fact that the broadband
capability is more than 100 time greater for the FTTP when compared to the 5G network.
Equipment Maintenance – The wireless network requires an external antenna that could
be obstructed by the growth of a tree or other new structure, or that can require careful
alignment and can become misaligned during a windstorm.
Utility Costs – The 5G wireless solution requires commercial power at every cell site. If
each cell site serves, on average, 10 locations there would be 2,000 cell sites in a town
with 20,000 locations. Each of these would not only incur the initial cost of installing
commercial power, but would also have a monthly recurring cost. The FTTP network is
completely passive between the central office and the customer premises and requires no
power.
Replacement Cost – The 5G wireless local loop uses electronics that would normally
depreciate over 7 years. The FTTP local loop uses fiber optic cable that depreciates over
20-30 years. Even with higher loop costs for the 5G wireless network, it would likely need
to be replaced three times during the life of the FTTP loop, which would increase the cost
even more.

As the 5G wireless network is more expensive for the initial CapEx as well as the OpEx and
provides 1% of the broadband speed and capacity available on a FTTP network, it does not
appear that it would generally be a good investment if being used only for fixed broadband
services. It is possible that there could be some select scenarios for which it may make economic
sense, but one would expect those scenarios would be limited.
So the conclusion drawn in Vantage Point’s March 2015 paper still holds: “Wireless networks are
needed for low bit rate mobile applications, such as voice, email and small screen video. In
contrast, wireline networks are required to meet customers’ high speed, fixed broadband needs.
27

 As demonstrated in this report, for most customers, wireless technologies will not be a
replacement for, but rather a complement to, wireline broadband technologies.”38

38

Wireless Broadband is Not a Viable Substitute for Wireline Broadband, Vantage Point Solutions, March
2015, pg. 3 (http://www.ntca.org/images/stories/Documents/fixedwirelesswhitepaper.pdf)

28

 Author Biographies
Larry D. Thompson, PE
CEO
Larry Thompson is a licensed professional engineer and has been
designing satellite, wireless, and broadband wireline networks for more
than 30 years. Larry received his bachelor’s degree in physic from
William Jewell College and his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas. Prior to founding
Vantage Point Solutions in 2002, Larry held several engineering and
management positions with TRW’s Space and Defense sector,
CyberLink Corporation, and Martin Group. Larry is currently the CEO of
Vantage Point Solutions, which has over 200 employees and is a
national provider of engineering and consulting services. Over the
years, he has assisted many wireless and wireline companies successfully manage their
technical, regulatory, and financial challenges.
Larry is a frequent speaker at state and national conferences and a frequent expert witness at
utility commission and legal proceedings relating to telecommunication technology and regulatory
matters. He lives in Mitchell, South Dakota with his wife and two daughters.

Warren H. Vande Stadt
Senior Technology Leader
2017 marks 40 years in the wireless industry for Mr. Vande Stadt. As
cellular became commercially viable in the 1980’s, and following many
years as a Motorola Field Technical Representative, Mr. Vande Stadt
became Technical Manager for American TeleServices, a large Radio
Common Carrier created by Wayne Schelle – inventor of “Cellular
One.” Then, as Director of Engineering for Cellular One of
Southeastern Virginia, Mr. Vande Stadt oversaw construction and
operation of one of the nation’s first top-30 cellular networks. He has
since planned and managed construction and operation of many
cellular and other wireless networks, as Director of Engineering for 14MSA cellular operator CIS; for RSA consulting firm Dakon Cellular, and 12 years as President of
his own wireless consulting firm. Mr. Vande Stadt joined Vantage Point Solutions in 2002 as
Senior Technology Leader and is now a partner, focusing on industry analysis, client wireless
strategy, project planning and implementation.
29

 Vantage Point Solutions, Inc. is a customer-focused, technology-driven engineering and
consulting firm serving the broadband (telecommunication) and financial industries. Combining
professional engineering, technical expertise and extensive regulatory knowledge, we design the
most technically advanced and economically viable solutions customized for our clients.
Progressive thinking makes Vantage Point well-known and respected in the industry. In addition
to feasibility studies, long range communication plans, outside plant services and regulatory
consulting, we also specialize in revenue assurance to help meet your customers’ demand for
multiple product offerings.
At VPS we tailor each project to fit the individual needs of the client. With over 400 clients in more
than 40 states and 8 foreign countries, VPS has the vast experience necessary to understand the
best solution for any company.
There are over 200 fulltime employees on staff at VPS. Our team is continually researching and
evaluating new technologies while searching for the latest products and methods that will make
network infrastructure more robust while reducing maintenance.
The team leaders at VPS offer an invaluable amount of industry expertise. Leaders are handson, working directly with clients to find solutions.
VPS staff members are more than employees, they are owners. Our employees are committed
to client satisfaction because client success is employee success. As an employee owned
company, our staff is rewarded when our company excels. We hire employees who understand
this culture of commitment and who are willing to dedicate their efforts toward the overall success
of the company. This translates to a positive work environment and a high satisfaction level for
our clients.
We have the tools necessary to help successfully complete any project. With professional
engineers and regulatory experts under the same roof, we are able to understand the big picture
for any company. We offer a level of experience and expertise that will give peace of mind
throughout an entire project. Team members make smart decisions in the most timely, costeffective manner possible. We offer a level of customer service that goes above and beyond
expectations. At VPS we don’t stop at good enough. That’s simply your Vantage Point
advantage.

 

  777
2211 Minnesota Street Mitchell SD 57301