White Paper │July 2018

Hybrid Access
as an upgrade to Fixed Wireless

Introduction
Some operators are rolling out Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) which involves customers using a fixed router
containing a 4G radio. FWA implies connecting TV’s, laptops, phones, tablets, appliances and smart home
controls to the Internet, over wireless technologies.

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) Performance

In practice, 4G based FWA doesn’t work well, with some operators admitting that in certain areas their
customers are getting single digit speeds. For instance, below you can see how the speed for different
network types changes throughout the day from sites in the US, New Zealand and Australia. At peak times,
DSL and fibre are impacted the least, whereas wireless is impacted the most.1

1
​Fixed Wireless Broadband Versus Fixed Line Broadband (ADSL, VDSL, Cable or Fibre)
https://www.broadbandcompare.co.nz/n/fixed-wireless-broadband-nz
1
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Not only is wireless Internet impacted by being a shared resource, but this is exacerbated when it is used
for FWA which increases the number of attached devices, with significant impact on data volumes.

For instance, in the following table, we can see the amount of data consumed by popular OTT services2:

Service Bandwidth Required Gigabytes per hour

YouTube 720p 5 Mbps 2.25 GB / hour

YouTube 1080p 8 Mbps 3.6 GB / hour

YouTube 4K 20 Mbps 9 GB / hour

BBC iPlayer HD 2.8 Mbps 1.26 GB / hour

Netflix 720p 5 Mbps 2.25 GB / hour

Netflix 1080p 10 Mbps 4.5 GB / hour

Netflix 4K 25 Mbps 11.25 GB / hour

2
Netflix​ ​https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
YouTube​ ​https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3037019
iPlayer​ ​https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/troubleshooting/web/Insufficient_bandwidth

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Let us assume a household consumes 3 hours per day or 90 hours per month of Netflix @1080p; that’s
over 400GB per month before any other Internet use is taken into consideration. That is on one device
when the average number of connected devices in the home is probably between 10 and 15.3 Netflix is very
good at adapting to lower bit rates and on a small mobile screen you will probably not even notice.
However, on a 50 inch UHD screen in your living room, you will be much more likely to notice the drop in
quality when there is not enough bandwidth.

If your customers watch this same stream over your wireless network they are going to run out of data
allowance fast and will not be happy. Consequently, customers in areas where FWA is widely deployed are
not seeing speeds fast enough to enjoy HD video streaming at peak times.

FWA has been deployed as a solution for customers with low DSL speeds. However the remainder of this
article will show that Hybrid Access (combining FWA + DSL) is more appropriate because you can use the
fixed line capacity first, overflowing to 4G only when needed. If you want to cap the wireless usage, that’s
possible too.

Hybrid Access: Adding DSL to FWA

Consider a household with a 6 Mbps DSL connection. If they watch a 10 Mbps 1080p video stream 3 hours
per day, the first 6 Mbps goes over DSL and the other 4 Mbps over 4G. We are avoiding 240 GB per month
per customer going over the 4G network. Our experience shows that on average 50% of 4G network traffic
can be offloaded to DSL and customers can go from watching standard definition to high definition video.

Why are 4G and 5G unsuitable?

FWA based on 4G technologies has had limited success in the past due to the frequencies used, the lack
of available bandwidth and the fact that wireless is a shared resource. If we believe the hype, 5G will solve
all of these problems. Let’s compare 4G FWA and 5G FWA and then compare both to Hybrid Access.

First let’s look at some examples of 4G FWA deployments and the problems/restrictions they have:

3
Various estimates can been found:
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/302663/north-american-consumers-to-have-13-connected-devi.html
https://www.totaltele.com/500103/EE-Average-UK-Smart-Home-will-have-50-connected-devices-by-2023
https://index.kaspersky.com/metrics/deviceusage

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NBN (Australia)4

● FWA is an access option for Australia’s NBN. In April 2018, NBN revealed that a quarter of it’s fixed
wireless cells were getting wholesale speeds of less than 12 Mbps during busy periods.
● 6% of cells were providing speeds of less than 6 Mbps. A cell is not considered congested until it
reaches 6Mbps and it’s not officially unacceptable until it reaches 3 Mbps leaving some subscribers
to reconsider ADSL.
● Retail service providers have released data showing that retail speeds are considerably lower than
suggested by the wholesale averages. For example, half of Aussie Broadband’s customers
averaged less than half their ordered speed for half the day.
● Telstra are not even offering the highest tier 50 Mbps product because the speeds are not
achievable for enough of the time.

Verizon HomeFusion - residential LTE (USA)5

● The plan offers just 5-12 Mbps for the first 10 GB per month after which the speed is throttled to 3G
levels (typically 600-850 kbps6) compared to a US average broadband speed of 18.7Mbps and
usage per capita which exceeds 100 GB per month.
● $60 for 10GB and then $10 per GB
● An antenna must be mounted on the outside of the building.

Bouygues Telecom (France)

● Available to customers suffering ADSL speeds of less than 5 Mbps which equates to a potential
market of 5 million households.
● 200 GB per month cap after which the speed is throttled from about 50 Mbps down to just 512 kbps
until the end of the billing period7.
● The monthly cap is likely to impact customers who use OTT video devices such as Chromecast or
Apple TV (there were 3 million in France in 2017) which generate an estimated consumption of

4
​NBN Co reveals distribution of fixed wireless speeds:
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-reveals-distribution-of-fixed-wireless-speeds-489655
5
Verizon's HomeFusion residential 4G LTE available nationwide starting this week
https://www.theverge.com/2012/5/2/2994054/verizons-homefusion-residential-4g-lte-availability

6
Here Are The Catches in Verizon’s Unlimited Data Plan -
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/2017/02/15/here-catches-verizons-unlimited-data-plan/97959130/

7
VOS CONDITIONS GÉNÉRALES DE SERVICE AU 23 JANVIER 2017
https://lafibre.info/images/bytel/201701_bouygues_telecom_conditions_generales_de_service.pdf

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around 190 GB per month based on 4 hours of viewing per day, split 90% regular TV (720p) and
10% OTT video (1080p).
● In these cases, total household usage would hit the 200 GB cap each month, causing a significant
change in customer experience until the new month begins.

T-Mobile Austria8

● A mobile-only operator with an unlimited 4G FWA offer called “HomeNet”.

● To overcome the resulting 4G network congestion T-Mobile launched “HomeNet Hybrid” in 2018.
● Fixed lines were obtained on a wholesale basis and despite their line cost and more expensive
hybrid CPE, T-Mobile was still able to offer customers the same service at the same price.

Why 4G FWA fails to deliver

1. Different parts of the spectrum are used for 4G and the higher the frequency the less well the waves
go through buildings. 800 Hz propagates well and is used for rural / indoor coverage but there is
only 30 MHz available in this part of the spectrum, shared between different operators. This limits
the capacity compared to higher frequencies.

2. Connecting a customer to FWA requires a 4G gateway and in some cases an engineer to ensure
the best balance between 4G reception (on a window sill) and Wi-Fi coverage (middle of the house).
Some operators give the 4G gateway away for free but the cost is covered by a 24 month contract.
Verizon’s $200 installation charge gives some indication of the cost of the equipment when an
antenna has to be fixed to the outside of the house.

3. Mobile data connection costs are low if spare capacity is available, but FWA is a mobile data offer
for an entire household which can have a lot of devices behind it (10-15 in the average home, as
mentioned above).

4. A limited monthly allowance before throttling is going to make the proposition less attractive (than
fixed broadband) to some customers.

5. 4G speeds vary considerably throughout the day and some applications will not work well with the
increased latency of wireless technologies.

8
​https://www.t-mobile.at/internet-zuhause-myhomenet/

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What about 5G FWA?

1. 5G doesn’t automatically come with a FWA capability. It is likely that operators deploying 5G will
need to acquire additional spectrum (at lower frequencies) and deploy new and more numerous
base stations (small cells) to provide FWA to households.

2. In the case of new 5G spectrum, new antennas and radios will be needed both in the street and on
the outside of customer premises. Line of sight is more of a requirement for 5G mmWave than it is
for the frequencies used for 4G.

3. 5G will increase available capacity but this will be matched by the expected increases in data
consumption.

4. 5G’s costs are similar to those of fibre and, like fibre, one needs to consider the cost per homes
passed ​and​ costs per homes connected. Therefore, 5G FWA may only make sense where fibre
would make sense, but today’s 4G FWA is deployed in areas where fixed access is already
acknowledged as being too costly to upgrade.

Why Hybrid Access?

1. A fixed line provides a stable performance ‘anchor’ to underpin the variability of 4G.

2. Hybrid can be rolled out using separate DSL and 4G CPEs, giving the customer the flexibility for
antenna placement by putting the 4G router by the window and the Wi-Fi (DSL) router in the middle
of the house if required.

3. The carrier’s ongoing data connection cost is less than FWA because half of the data can be
offloaded to the DSL network.

4. The effect of data growth is mitigated by the offloading of FWA traffic to DSL.

5. The total cost of Hybrid Access is less than alternatives like FTTP and can be implemented more
quickly (6+ months) and in a more targeted manner per household.

6. Hybrid access can be implemented as an upgrade to 4G FWA today, and then upgraded again to
5G FWA in the future.

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Hybrid: The best of FWA and DSL

By moving customers from 4G to Hybrid, we are reducing the 4G consumed and improving the customer
experience. When using 4G to boost speeds for DSL customers, the 4G is used only when necessary and
can be used according to a lower priority so that only spare capacity is utilised.

If you are a network operator with fixed and mobile assets, Hybrid Access may be the best of both worlds
for you and your customers. Please get in touch with us if you would like to know more.

About Tessares
Tessares is an innovative startup created by several of the key developers of the Multipath TCP protocol
and of its reference implementation in the Linux kernel. Tessares leverages this technical expertise to
design, develop and deploy software-based solutions to enable network operators to improve network
performance and reliability by combining different access network technologies for the benefit of their
customers. Tessares is a privately-owned company that received significant first round funding from both
Proximus (previously called Belgacom) and VIVES (vivesfund.com).

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Contact: sales@tessares.net / +44 7771 37 34 24 / +32 497 07 65 42

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