The digital divide persists today — even in many developed economies, including the US — because each tool in the current broadband access toolbox has attributes that limit their utility and scope:

• Fiber delivers great speeds but is often prohibitively costly and slow to deploy.

• Mobile networks serve smartphones well but rarely have the capacity to support many active households, which each consume ~50x more traffic than a single smartphone user.

• Traditional fixed wireless access (FWA) networks based on indoor Wi-Fi tech are easy to deploy, but are severely limited by obstructions and unlicensed interference at scale.

• LEO satellite networks are excellent for remote locations without infrastructure, but will not have (even when fully deployed) enough capacity to serve mainstream markets.