"One, we want to push this concept that you're not just giving [the building owner] a
fat pipe; you're actually creating a services-oriented building area network in that building, so people can get those services two years down the road.
Even
fat pipes cannot support leapfrogging bandwidth demands.
Home- and office-based video streaming is coming, and that data needs a
fat pipe in both directions.
Although the Internet data was physically transported by parallel T1s between the two Orion 4000s, the connection functioned as a 6-Mbps "
fat pipe." This 6-Mbps channel was more efficient than four separate 1.5-Mbps T1 connections and provided notable improvements in response over the three separate T1 connects used previously.
So customers of one WiMax carrier may get a
fat pipe of 1Mb per second or more at home and then find they can't use a roaming partner's network for the rich applications they're used to, he said.
It's important to partner with a videoconference technology partner that has good options for all types of bandwidth and latencies--ranging from "
fat pipes" and "low latency" to the low-quality Internet connectivity still sometimes found in rural areas.