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Comment by batgaijin | Hacker News Reader

See, I want to agree with you, but I'm not sure.

I think that the future really is in wireles communications. What's the point of laying down fiber if in 10 years we can get wireless at the same speed?

Of course I'm assming that telco will actually compete in tthat domain... but considering how easy it is to switch serfices, I think it can only get more disruptive.

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Wireless is a shared medium. There is a limit to how much you can push through the air.

Laying fiber once is long enough to last at least 100 years (based on what we know now). Should we not lay fiber just because wireless may eventually be as fast?

A good decision now is better than the best decision later.

And in those 10 years the amount of data you can mux into fiber pairs will have increased at an even greater pace. What do you think your wireless carriers are using as a backbone? fiber. The fact that speeds of wireless providers have caught up to the average speeds of landline ISPs in most areas is just a sign of the corruption of the cable companies, not that wireless is a superior medium for data transfer.

Wireless will never be able to match the bandwidth of fiber. Today fiber can transmit close to 10 Tb/s through a single line. This is orders of magnitude more than will ever be possible with wireless.

What's the point of laying down fiber if in 10 years we can get wireless at the same speed?

Sunspots.

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