Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead is not doing any favors for Comcast as it pursues approval to acquire Time Warner Cable. In August, he came out and publicly stated that no, LTE is not equal to fiber. The Verge quoted Mead, who was refreshingly honest about technical limitations and Comcast’s motivations for making such outrageous claims:
“They’re trying to get deals approved, right, and I understand that… their focus is different than my focus right now, because I don’t have any deals pending,” Mead said, a reference to the fact that Comcast is looking for ways to justify the TWC buy. “LTE certainly can compete with broadband, but if you look at the physics and the engineering of it, we don’t see LTE being as efficient as fiber coming into the home.”
A number of other organizations also try to educate the general public about the fact that mobile Internet access is not on par with wireline service. For example, Public Knowledge has long argued that “4G + Data Caps = Magic Beans.”
Our Wireless Internet Access Fact Sheet dispels common misconceptions, shares info about data caps, and provides comparative performance data between wireless and wired connections. While mobile Internet access is certainly practical, valuable, and a convenient complement to wired connections, it is no replacement. Wireless limitations, coupled with providers’ expensive data caps enforced with overage charges, can never replace a home wired connection. Doing homework, applying for a job, or paying bills online quickly drives families over the typical 250 GB limit.
Speaking from experience, my own family of three routinely surpasses 250 GB per month and we are not bandwidth hogs compared to many other families in our social circle. Fortunately for us, the “enforcement of the 250GB data consumption threshold is currently suspended,” as I am reminded every billing cycle.
Considering Mead’s experience in both wired and wireless, how could any of us question his perspective:
Before moving to Verizon’s wireless unit, Mead held executive roles in the company’s landline business, responsible for traditional telephone service and high-speed internet to the home. “We know both sides of that pretty well,” he continued. “So that may be a little bit of a stretch, and the economics are much different.”