Facebook's Terragraph Hopes To Replace Fiber Broadband Beginning With 2019 Trials

It could replace DSL and cable, or it could lose it all to 5G.

- Mark Hachman

Facebook’s plan to connect neighborhoods and businesses wirelessly, known as Terragraph, will begin field trials in 2019 using 60GHz technology from Qualcomm, the two companies said recently.

Facebook began talking about Terragraph in 2016 (go.pcworld.com/tr16), part of a bid to replace fiber broadband with 60GHz millimeter-wave wireless. The technology wouldn’t replace Wi-Fi, but was designed to offer a replacement for fiber or cable to homes and businesses, forgoing the need to rip up streets and sidewalks.

Now we have a date: 2019, the first time the technology will be tested, according to Jesse Burke, a staff marketing manager at Qualcomm. Actual deployment will come later, he said.