June 25, 2008Mobile WiMax is Being Buried Alive?
WiMax news has been dominated by a London research firm’s recent announcement that mobile WiMax might be dead on arrival.
“Recent events have been unfavourable toward Mobile WiMAX,” says Frost & Sullivan’s Programme Manager Luke Thomas, referring to Sprint’s delayed deployment of its commercial WiMax network. The firm then focuses on the two aspects of mobile WiMax:
“In terms of indoor wireless broadband, Wi-Fi fits well in this space and with the emergence of 802.11n, which includes MIMO, throughputs would be far better than what MobileWiMAX can deliver…With respect to outdoor mobile broadband environments, users would expect Mobile WiMAX to seamlessly hand off to cellular networks in the absence of WiMAX reception. In reality this is not possible as mobile WiMAX is not backward compatible with existing cellular technologies.” (Centre Daily)
By their diagnosis, the future of mobile WiMax seems bleak indeed. However, the image they portray may be oversimplified to WiMax’s disfavor. For instance, most next-generation broadband technologies will radically change modes of operation, making them incompatible with prior hardware. And before you ask, yes, in this club is the much-championed LTE. So in any discussion of new mobile technology, upgrading existing equipment is almost a given. It’s certainly much more of an industry-wide hurdle than, as Frost & Sullivan make it seem, an obstacle of WiMax exclusively. And already the industry is moving towards a solution, with talks of multimode.
As for the talk of the 802.11n standard of WiFi: last I heard, parts of the standard were still under patent in Australia, and requests for Letters of Assurance were ignored. That’s not a good portent for the standard’s likelihood of approval, as fast as it may be. I’d much rather look to WiMax, which is set to launch in its first large U.S. metropolitan area, Baltimore, in September.
Posted by Arizoldan in : Analyses and Speculations, WiMAX, Wi-Fi, wireless, Word on the Street Is...June 17, 2008Amsterdam to Enjoy Mobile WiMAX
If Amsterdam is any indication, mobile WiMAX is already starting to overtake widespread WiFi in large metropolitan centers. Today Worldmax, a privately held Dutch firm, with Alcatel-Lucent, has activated a WiMAX network that covers the hub of the city, providing high-speed broadband to subscribers far beyond the limited berth of WiFi hotspots (Reuters).
This network, termed Aurea, is only a shadow of the scale of deployment the company wishes to have in place within the next few years–by the end of the summer, the entire city; by the a few years’ end, the entire country. The new network boasts activation within 2 working days, and a monthly subscription fee, entailing access to unlimited wireless data, of 20 euros a month. Currently, it needs a WiMAX PC card and USB adapter, but as soon as Intel (a large investor in Worldmax) produces its WiMAX-compatible notebook chips, users will have all the technology they need, right out of the box (Edubourse). Quite the efficient relationship!
Worldmax, Alcatel-Lucent, and Intel intends to showcase their new system with live feeds from taxis and cruise ships at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress, which, in fact, just started today. Whether their network lives up to expectation remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Worldmax definitely knows how to kick off an event.
Posted by Arizoldan in : WiMAX, WiMAX, Wi-Fi, wirelessJune 12, 2008Nortel Passes the Torch to Alvarion
The Canadian equipment manufacturer Nortel is passing on its WiMax operations to Alvarion in order to focus on LTE development, as reported on telecoms.com. Nortel claims the deal allows for both WiMax and LTE, which is projected to get to market faster than anticipated, to be developed on a timely schedule.
But there are other dynamics at play. The most immediate stimulus for the switch may be due to the Clearwire-Sprint deal still fresh in everyone’s minds; such a coalition in support of WiMax technologies has got AT&T and Verizon scrambling to polish the rival technology they’re backing, LTE. Once shipped, LTE hardware will be able to deliver floods of streaming media to mobile users, in as-of-yet unheard of quantities. Is it any surprise that Nortel is eying this development anxiously? In Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski’s own words, it’ll put “lots of pressure on the bandwidth of the networks” (TheStar.com). Thus they have prioritized, allowing Alvarion to handle WiMax while they lavish the LTE front with the attention it needs.
Smart move? It seems so. Nortel’s stock consequently jumped 13% following the announcement. But don’t interpret that as a clear indication of market confidence in LTE–the battle lines are still being drawn on the 4G frontier.
Posted by Arizoldan in : Analyses and Speculations, WiMAX, Wi-Fi, wireless
