“How can you make video relevant,” asks Tom Whitaker Senior Vice President of Shentel. He answers his own question by suggesting that operators need to find different ways to add value to the video product, including having features like whole home Wi-Fi and whole home access to video content.

Whitaker brings his take on 5G and what that means to traditional land-line providers. As a provider of both land-line and mobile services, he brings a broad perspective to the topic. In the end, he suggests that having a robust bandwidth to and within the home is the best way to defend against the future competition.

He points out that rural areas will not be the initial target of either the 600 MHz (T-Mobile) or millimeter wave offerings from Verizon or AT&T, as it will require many access points (in the case of millimeter wave) or not lower throughput (600 MHz). And new bandwidth options, such as the CBRS and 6 GHz bands will take years to clear and when they do could end up complementing a broadband providers’ terrestrial network.

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