Statement of Doug Morgan, WinStar Wireless, Inc. FCC Bandwidth Forum January 23, 1997 WinStar Wireless, Inc., is a provider of wireless broadband access and backhaul transmission services capable of supplying the reach necessary to bring the myriad of voice, data, and video services today's new technology offers to a broader audience than available through existing plant. WinStar provides DS-1 and DS-3 Service using 38 GHz radio technology, and plans to add OC-3 service in the coming year. WinStar's Licensed Service Areas allow it broad service capabilities. WinStar can extend the network services of local exchange, long distance, cable, video, internet, and wireless carriers with high-quality DS-1 and DS-3 service in over 150 major markets across the United States. In total, WinStar can reach over 170 million people in the United States, and offers 574 million Channel-Pops of spectrum, enabling it wide distribution capabilities. Included in WinStar's service areas are over 150 market areas of over 100,000 in population. As a wireless access provider, WinStar's goal is to build wireless network infrastructure to extend the reach of its customers' networks. This service can be provided to carriers of voice, data, and video, and has utility with wireless, wireline, and cable carrier customers. Because its technology is based on transport of Digital Signaling Hierarchy (presently DS-1 and DS-3, with OC-3 expected in 1997) and WinStar's radio technology resides at Layer 1 (Transport) of the OSI Model, WinStar provides a means of extending the services and information available through a variety of service providers networks without the need for development of new technology, new regulations, proprietary protocols or equipment. Carriers in various communications industries are searching for cost effective ways to enter new markets and provide a side portfolio of digital broadband. The high bandwidth capacity required of new services, protocols, and technologies requires universal availability of higher-quality infrastructure than currently available. The costs associated with upgrading existing copper plant and making access to fiber optic technology widely available are staggering, as are the associated time delays which could be expected to achieve such goals. WinStar provides an alternative means of quickly increasing access from voice, data, video, and internet providers to a wider percentage of the business, government, educational and residential communities. Plus, this can be achieved at lower cost, and without needless impact on the network design and installed infrastructure This means WinStar can provide an important resource: seamless access to the benefits of information technology today, without negative impact on the cost of providing service and without committing the country to a new generation of stranded plant. The nation's network infrastructure as currently in place was originally designed with a lofty goal: universal access. The installed base of copper plant no longer is able to provide the levels of service our future will require. Fiber optics, though able to serve the nation with high quality service, is simply too expensive to deploy to make universal access a reality. WinStar can provide the communications industry the ability to extend high-quality, high-bandwidth services to effectively provide fiber-quality broadband local access services to customers and areas for which extension of fiber optic cable is neither practical nor economically justified. Rather than deploy intermediate technologies in an attempt to squeeze quality out of inconsistent copper plant, instead of spending large sums to dig up the ground in a long-term project to lay expensive new network infrastructure, WinStar provides a simple alternative. Bridge the gap between today's network services and people's ability to gain access by deploying a standards-based technology that is compatible with the Digital Signaling Hierarchy and will seamlessly transport the voice, data, and video information available today. This solution requires no commitment to unproven technology, no commitment that outmodes current technology or may strand plant as future improvements in technology arise. WinStar can use the installed plant of cable, telephone, and data networks as a backbone and provide access to the schools and libraries of the nation without dedicating expensive infrastructure, the cost of which has been a barrier to universal availability of information in our society. In addition to its network reach, low relative cost, and quick time-to-market, WinStar can use its Wireless FiberSM Services to overcome other barriers to national availability of information: those due to nature. WinStar's wireless broadband access services are a natural choice for spanning environmental obstacles which have restricted effective deployment of high-speed services in many areas. WinStar provides a robust, wireless infrastructure much less likely to be destroyed by flooding, rains, snow, wind, and ice. Because the technology can be deployed as a point-to-point service, it makes possible cost-effective access to areas which have previously not been serviced due to the unavailability of cost-justifiable routing (and the need for longer, circuitous routing, and special cable routing. WinStar's Wireless FiberSM Services are a superior choice for alternate routing. By bypassing the building entrance point, the most common single point of failure in most network designs is eliminated, providing a means of increasing the reliability and robustness of the nations' infrastructure. These same characteristics make it an invaluable element in disaster recovery solutions designed to keep the access to information available at those times when it is needed most. WinStar solves the challenges its customers face in their efforts to supply the public with the quality and quantity of service required. While competitive opportunity abounds, it is expensive for carriers and content providers to upgrade existing plant to serve customers' growing demand for quality, high-speed access services. This fact has slowed the building of the access infrastructure required to make the dream of universal access information a reality. Although sweeping regulatory change has made entrance into competitors' markets a possibility, these new opportunities are accompanied by the challenge of finding reasonably-priced access alternatives. Central Office facilities designed to serve sparse populations with low-speed service are a constraint when it comes to making access to the Information Age ubiquitous. Network providers desire to reduce the burden of capital expenditure required to build fiber networks, yet require the quality of fiber optic performance. Competitors need to minimize time to market and the expense of provisioning broadband services to enable expansion into new districts and territories. The capital expenditures, personnel resource limitations, and delays associated with building fiber make viable alternatives desirable. WinStar provides that alternative: Wireless FiberSM Services