Fixed wireless access: a market and system overview

Amongst the many technological developments of the last few years, one in particular has been directly driven by the liberalisation of the telecommunication services sector and the entry of competition into once monopoly markets. That technology is fixed wireless access (FWA). While traditional telecommunication infrastructures have relied on the use of twisted pair copper wire to deliver services to subscribers-the local loop-FWA replaces this with point-to-multipoint digital wireless links. This paper examines the history of Nortel's involvement as market leader in this sector from its earliest days, the approaches the company has taken to the technologies involved and explores FWA's potential in the world's deregulating telecommunication services market