WISPAMERICA ‘19, this year’s show by the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA), opened in Cincinnati Tuesday. The show brings together service providers, industry experts and suppliers — including tower-related products — in the fixed wireless internet industry for three days of learning, networking and inspiration. This year, the event lasts through Thursday, March 21, at the Duke Energy Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.
WISPAMERICA ‘19 features over 100 exhibitors, showcasing an array of products and services from wireless gear to fiber-optics, tower infrastructure, software, cloud services, VoIP solutions, financing, insurance and mapping services.
Today, attendees will hear a keynote presentation from FCC Commissioner, Brendan Carr, who will discuss Washington’s growing role in regulating the wireless industry, as well as the integral function WISPs play in bridging the digital divide. Attendees will also hear from policy experts – such as WISPA president, Claude Aiken, and newly hired vice president of government relations, Christina Mason – regarding recent developments on Capitol Hill, which affect the wireless industry.
Approximately 2,000 WISPs dot the U.S. landscape, providing fixed wireless, high-speed broadband services to more than four million Americans, many of whom reside in rural and remote areas. The majority of WISPs are small businesses with fewer than 1,500 subscribers, having built their networks with their own capital.
Tomorrow, attendees will hear from Google’s Preston Marshall – a spectrum access expert, and chair of the Wireless Innovation Forum Steering Group. His keynote presentation will address how the emergence of high-capacity, shorter-range wireless broadband systems, such as CBRS and 5G, will create new models of broadband deployment that are hybrids of fiber and wireless, rather than choices between fiber and wireless.
March 20, 2019
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