With broadband demand surging and infrastructure lagging, fixed wireless access (FWA) has emerged as a viable, fast-moving alternative to fiber—especially in rural and underserved regions. In this interview, Jim Nevelle, General Manager at Mimosa, breaks down how their unlicensed-spectrum FWA solutions are cutting both capital costs and deployment time. Unlike traditional 5G-based systems or costly fiber builds, Mimosa’s approach uses Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 in the 5-6 GHz band, enabling high-speed broadband delivery in days, not months.
Nevelle outlines how the company’s access points can reach up to 10 miles, or even 40–50 kilometers in some setups, all without the burden of licensing fees. He also shares how larger carriers are turning to solutions like Mimosa’s for rapid deployment in tough-to-reach markets. As delays and bureaucracy slow down federal broadband programs like BEAD, Nevelle stresses the need for flexible, scalable tools that can meet immediate needs—and Mimosa is stepping up with a carrier-grade offering. Backed by telecom giant Reliance Jio, the company is gearing up for a major rollout following its WISPAPALOOZA debut.
Steve Saunders:
Hey, Jim, it's great to talk to you today. I wanted to talk to you about bringing broadband to communities here in the US. It seems like it's still a huge challenge. What do you see as the biggest barriers today and how can solutions like fixed wireless access help close that gap, that digital divide?
Jim Nevelle:
Steve, you're right. The biggest problem we have is obviously getting the coverage out to a good portion of the United States. The United States is vast. The biggest issues right now is cost, the CapEx. If you're trying to put fiber in the ground across the United States, there just is not enough money out there to do that. Number two is, we'll call it traditional FWA, if you will, the 5G type items that you see maybe some of the carriers offer, that's very limited. They can't offer that to as many people as you would think you could do that to. So we kind of fill this gap in the middle. That's very good for what we try to do, deploying in the United States. Using unlicensed technology, you can go out to rural environments, you can reach a lot of customers very quickly, low cost of entry, and offer a fiber-like service to them.
Steve Saunders:
Is it 5G-based?
Jim Nevelle:
It's not. What we do is essentially have a solution that has a access point that's up on a tower. We utilize Wi-Fi. We use Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 as the catalyst, that spectrum, that five-six gigahertz range, and it reaches out to customer sites where you have another radio, and then we use that unlicensed spectrum to give them broadband connectivity.
Steve Saunders:
So that eliminates one of the biggest problems right out of the gate, right, licensing.
Jim Nevelle:
License, absolutely. For example, in the United States where you have wireless ISPs, WISPs, they basically were able to fill in a gap that the other carriers weren't able to do because they don't have to buy licenses, they don't have to buy spectrum, they can turn up services very quickly.
As a matter of fact, even the larger carriers are looking at these type of technologies, one, for stopgap methods where they know they don't have fiber or it's very costly to even get microwave put in. It's going to take them months, if not quarters, to try to get that taken care of. Now they can turn items up within hours.
Steve Saunders:
What sort of range can you get with that?
Jim Nevelle:
We're dealing with access points that are, let's say, two feet by two feet, just to make it easy, the square size, fits up on a tower, water tower, structure, building, and then you have a customer device that's going to be something the size smaller than your laptop, if you will, that will go on the side of a house. If we're dealing in an environment where you have one, we'll call it access point, which is our central point, and you can go out and talk to your 25-50 customers out there, you're talking a range of 5 to 10 miles. And it also then depends on the type of speeds we can offer, but we have circuits now using unlicensed spectrum in point-to-point mode. We're going 40-50 kilometers in certain parts of the world, utilizing unlicensed technology.
Steve Saunders:
Have you been disappointed by the progress on the regulatory side with things like BEAD?
Jim Nevelle:
We'll say yes, especially in the US. The biggest issue that you have with BEAD funding, government funding, those type of programs, they take a long time.
Steve Saunders:
Are you making any changes to those in response to market needs? Do you have any plans to add features or modify the feature mix on the products which you're selling?
Jim Nevelle:
A simple answer is yes. We are part of the Reliance Jio family. Reliance Jio is one of the world's largest telecom providers out of India. Their numbers are somewhere north of 480 million mobile users. We are part of that solution set. We've had become carrier grade. This isn't for just tier three, tier two.
Steve Saunders:
If one of them is looking at a choice between fiber or fixed wireless access, why is it so important to have an alternative to fiber? Just make that live for us a little bit, Jim.
Jim Nevelle:
When you're dealing with fiber, first off, fiber is a great technology. You can get a lot of bandwidth, and theoretically, it will last a long time. The biggest issue is getting it done. When a carrier wants to go out and try to deploy a fiber network, they have to plan, at the least, nine months, maybe even two years ahead of time to go through the permitting cycles. That's a lot of money.
So that's why you try to utilize a Mimosa equipment in an FWA environment where you can bypass that, where permitting is no longer the major item, where you can now go in and cross over barriers using unlicensed spectrum that is open to everyone and you can do it today. We were dealing with just a customer here recently that was more used to the permitting cycle we just talked about, and we showed them this solution and they said, "Well, how many weeks is it going to take?" And we're like, "We're going to have it up within an hour. It's going to be ready to go." So the speed, the efficiency, and be able to outreach and also do it at speeds that is almost fiber-like is pretty compelling.
Steve Saunders:
Jim, thanks for giving us an education on this today. I really appreciate it. And also, congratulations on this MIMO launch. When is that official? When are you announcing that?
Jim Nevelle:
We've already announced it actually at WISPAPALOOZA a little bit over a month ago, and we will be shipping out product here in the next 30-60 days.
Steve Saunders:
Congratulations, Jim.
Jim Nevelle:
Thank you Steve. Really appreciate it.
Steve Saunders:
Appreciate your time. Thank you.