Well for one thing, there's a big difference between a 9.6kbps cellphone voice call (and thus data channel) and 20 mbps+ data.
Wireless sucks. It is a bad solution to everything except where some much larger problem exists (i.e. you are on a plane).
Wireless seems good in India because the networks are not highly demanded - and are expensive to boot so volume is managed. Wireless seems to grow quickly because you throw up a tower and declare "50,000 people now have access!", and telephone service is still kind of a big deal.
But that's all you get from it. You can't provide a 20mbps pipe to those 50,000 people - not even close.
But India is poverty stricken. The electricity grid is bad. And there's the lawlessness that comes with poverty (heard of copper thieves?). Wireless towers are easy central locations to power and protect. Thousands of miles of copper or fiber is not.
Wireless sucks. It is a bad solution to everything except where some much larger problem exists (i.e. you are on a plane).
Wireless seems good in India because the networks are not highly demanded - and are expensive to boot so volume is managed. Wireless seems to grow quickly because you throw up a tower and declare "50,000 people now have access!", and telephone service is still kind of a big deal.
But that's all you get from it. You can't provide a 20mbps pipe to those 50,000 people - not even close.
But India is poverty stricken. The electricity grid is bad. And there's the lawlessness that comes with poverty (heard of copper thieves?). Wireless towers are easy central locations to power and protect. Thousands of miles of copper or fiber is not.