How 5G Will Impact Small Market Operators

At New Orleans’ Cable-Tec Expo 2019, we went looking for insights on the impact of 5G on all market sizes and company sizes, from the Comcasts to the Burlington Telecoms. As IoT devices have proliferated beyond the home and into our businesses and cities, the need for an updated technician, an updated portfolio of solutions, and an updated infrastructure has become more evident, from urban center to rural communities.

We sat down with Tom Williams, vice president of engineering and technology at Shurz Communications’ broadband division, to unpack how consumer-product interconnectivity is impacting small market operators, how its forcing the workforce to reeducate itself, and to what capacity 5G will support or burden those smaller markets. Beyond that, we also spoke on his session at Cable-Tec, where we asked for advice on the economics of deploying services like 4K video and whole-home WiFi to under-supported small/rural markets.