Hybrid Access: Managing Fiber + 5G + Satellite in an AI-Native World
For the last decade, telecom strategy was framed as a series of wide-sweeping technology bets: Fiber would rapidly dominate the fixed network. 5G would define mobile network. Technologies like satellite, despite its low cost of deployment per home passed, would fall victim to limitations like propagation delay and capacity limits and fall by the wayside for the majority of homes and businesses. However, this framing proved to be too general. Fiber couldn’t be deployed cost effectively or efficiently everywhere (think MDUs). 5G, for all of its strengths, had similar cost and reach challenges limiting its ubiquitous deployment. And satellite, as well as other wireless technologies, found new footing as deployment costs lowered and next generation technologies emerged. As broadband coverage overall has continued to climb, instead of a single access technology dominating each domain, we’ve seen multiple technologies vying for position and market share. A combination of technol...