Dewayne Hendricks has returned for his second appearance on the Community Broadband Bits Podcast, continuing our discussion about the potential for wireless technologies to improve how we access the Internet. We recommend listening to his first appearance in episode 18 before this one.
Here, we take up the old wired vs. wireless debate, but quickly determine that such a framing is useless. Wires and radios are actually complementary, not substitutes. In fact, Dewayne explains how he and other entrepreneurs cannot build the great wireless networks they want to because most communities lack the robust wired infrastructure necessary to support a strong wireless network.
The lack of competition among last mile providers like Comcast and AT&T leave too few options for innovators to build better networks — which is, of course, the aim of existing providers that do not want to encourage any competition that would eat into their profits.
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Listen to previous episodes here.
Thanks to mojo monkeys for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.