Does everybody need fiber? Rural broadband in the US. With Claude Aiken, Nextlink Internet
Senza Fili Sparring Partners4 Loka

Does everybody need fiber? Rural broadband in the US. With Claude Aiken, Nextlink Internet

For years, the assumption in the US – and not just in the US – was that broadband means fiber, and anything else is second class. In rural areas, that assumption is running into two hard limits: the cost per passing keeps rising as density falls, and Starlink and Amazon Leo now set the price and speed baseline in the hardest-to-reach locations.

In Sparring Partners, I speak with Claude Aiken, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Legal Officer at Nextlink Internet, a rural operator that runs fiber, fixed wireless and mobile across 12 states. Claude was previously President and CEO of WISPA and spent a decade at the FCC, so he has seen rural broadband from the operator, industry and regulator sides.

We don't agree on everything, but we agree that headline speed is the wrong thing to chase. Here is what we covered:

  • Why the US chose facilities-based competition, and what it costs
  • How LEO turned a geography problem into a capacity and economics problem
  • Where fiber, fixed wireless and satellite make sense and where subsidizing fiber is no longer a financially sensible option
  • Why reliability, price and service matter more to subscribers than gigabit speeds
  • Whether mobile can replace fixed broadband in rural areas
  • Whether connectivity should be treated as a right

You can follow Claude on his new Substack, Deployment Capital. Highly recommended.

You can watch the video of this podcast and read the transcript on Sparring Partners’ Substack

More on Senza Fili at https://senzafili.com

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