Living in the heart of a bustling city has its perks. One of which is quick and easy access to wired internet services. These services make your life easier and hassle-free by connecting you to the World Wide Web with blazing-fast speeds. There is a top-range provider in almost every zip, including Spectrum. Yet, the state of internet access is not uniform in the United States. Rural residents often get the short end of the stick. Their geographical locations on the outskirts and peripheries land them in a tough situation with little to no connectivity. So, they have no choice but to make do with this lack of broadband options and settle with inefficient satellite providers.
Enter fixed wireless internet. Offering internet speeds that compete with DSL, cable, and fiber connections, fixed wireless is a blessing for estranged rural internet users. But, is it better than satellite at signal transmission? What about its reception during bad weather? Is fixed wireless internet without cons? Let’s explore these possibilities below.
How does Fixed Wireless Internet Work?
As its name suggests, fixed wireless internet transmits data packets wirelessly over the airwaves. However, its signal dispersion is not haphazard. Rather, it is directional. A fixed wireless tower broadcasts internet signals at extremely high-frequency bands and beams them directly to the antenna attached to a subscriber’s rooftop. The base station and the receiving antenna maintain a direct line of sight, which makes everything possible. This kind of ‘focused’ signal delivery results in higher speeds and lower latency, which appeases fixed wireless customers to a great extent.
Moreover, rural subscribers don’t have to worry about installing wired infrastructures or satellite dishes. They just have to get a fixed wireless antenna, which is significantly cheap, and a subscription to a fixed wireless internet provider to start enjoying super-fast speeds with next-to-no lag.
Does Weather Affect Fixed Wireless Internet?
Investing in wireless internet connections always comes with its fair share of risks. Since wireless networks distribute internet signals over radio waves, they are more prone to disruptions and interferences from environmental obstructions, especially in bad weather conditions. We have seen this happen quite frequently with satellite internet, but how does fixed wireless fare in such a situation?
Fixed wireless handles weather stimuli much better than satellite or mobile broadband. Why? Because it sends data over a mix of licensed and unlicensed frequencies, which spread all over the spectrum, from 900 MHz to 40 GHz, so it is less affected by other wireless devices in the area or unfavorable climate.
What about Heavy Winds?
Heavy winds are the forerunners of storms and hurricanes. Traveling at the speed of 35 to 57 mph, they have the potency to bring down power lines and cause damage to life and property. Still, they do not break the flow of signal transmission in a fixed wireless setup. Radio waves are independent of dry winds. However, if a fixed wireless tower is not structurally robust and firmly grounded, it can be knocked down by winds and gusts that are particularly powerful. The same goes for the antenna on your rooftop, which can move out of the line of sight due to heavy winds and give rise to internet lags.
What about Storm Clouds?
After heavy winds arrive the storm clouds. These are thunderclouds, which appear right before the rain, and hover at the altitude of 18,000 feet or above. Do they affect fixed wireless systems? Not likely. Fixed wireless towers are typically 50 to 200 feet high up in the air, so they are thousands of feet below a storm cloud and out of its reach. This is how fixed wireless base stations remain safe from the electromagnetic interference caused by storm clouds, which might hamper the signal transmission of satellite internet since itmoves in a geostationary orbit 20,000 miles high.
What about Rain?
A torrent of shower looks pretty harmless, right?Yet, it is a death knell for wireless communication systems. This includes terrestrial point-to-point networks and satellite-based mechanisms. What happens is that the rain dropletsabsorb the radio frequency waves and throw the internet signals off their designated pathways. Consequently, these internet signals lose their strength and purpose, and disperse all over the atmosphere, instead of traveling from the broadcasting tower directly to the fixed wireless antennas. This effect is known as ‘rain fade’.
Even though the towers are located only a few miles away from subscribers’ homes in a fixed wireless setup and the signals don’t have to travel long distances from the hub to the antennas, still, rain fade manages to disrupt the efficient flow of signals. Thus, leading to buffering and other connectivity issues. To combat this, many fixed wireless providers design their equipment to maintain signal trajectory in heavy rains. You may also find fixed wireless antennas shielded against moisture seepage from rainfall.
What about Humidity?
Humidity refers to the higher concentration of water vapors in the atmosphere, which can make the temperature feel warmer. We usually encounter humidity during the summer season. The intensity of air moisture has been known to cause satellite signal disruptions. Is it the same with fixed wireless internet? Perhaps. As we’ve discovered in the previous section, the presence of water vapors in the air can absorb the RF signals and detract them, which can create a problem for fixed wireless users. Still, their situation is not as bad as satellite subscribers, who have to deal with signal disruptions occurring miles up in the air.
The Bottom Line
Fixed wireless is a viable connectivity solution for rural residents, who have a scarcity of options in their areas. Since it broadcasts internet signals wirelessly between a tower and an antenna, fixed wireless may be vulnerable to interference from rain fade or humidity. Besides this, it is immune to heavy winds or other weather conditions. Fixed wireless internet continues to deliver high-speed bandwidth despite atmospheric disturbance, which gives it a visible advantage over satellite internet and other wireless communication networks.
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