Companies

Clearwire to Launch WiMax in St. Paul

Elizabeth Dickey on January 11, 2010 | 2 comments

In Minnesota, Brooklyn Park has been searching for a practical way to offer high-speed wireless Internet in previously inaccessible areas of the city at a lower cost. And the solution to the problem appears to be WiMax.

Leading WiMax provider Clearwire came to the rescue and pleasantly surprised residents and city officials with an offer. Though customers would have to pay for the service, Clearwire agreed to provide high-speed service across Brooklyn Park without any investment by the city.

“In communities where socioeconomics have created somewhat of a digital divide, building a system like this is going to be very good for the community,” said City Manager Jamie Verbrugge.

If Clearwire is able to successfully build a wireless network throughout the Twin Cities by the end of the year as planned, it would make the metro one of the nation’s most-wireless areas. Clearwire began installing wireless networks last year and thus far, have completed projects in 27 metro areas including Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

Because Clearwire would offer faster Internet speeds and broader geographic reach than telephone company Qwest and a lower monthly fee than current cable TV company Comcast, the benefits could be exceedingly significant. Thus far, city staff have responded very well to Clearwire’s plan.… Read the rest

Green Packet and ZTE Enter Into Agreement

Michael Licata on January 7, 2010

Green Packet Berhad and ZTE Corporation have signed a agreement to provide the equipment and services necessary to roll out WiMax networks across the globe. ZTE provides a finance package of up to US$150million or RM509million. It would be so that Green Packet could design, supply, installation, integration, and equipment. It is to support their WiMAX network roll outs in Malaysia, Singapore and many other markets. It previously sold 30 million shares to The Capital Group.

“This is a very significant strategic move for both Green Packet and ZTE. As we seek to maintain our leadership position in the WiMAX space worldwide.” said CC Puan, Group Managing Director and CEO of Green Packet,”We need to build relationships with strategic vendors and partners that believe in the future of the industry and committed to developing the technology and the business.”

Green Packet is committed to advancing the WiMaxbusiness and technology globally. The company is differentiated in the international WiMAX with its business model of supplying innovative WiMAX products and solutions. It also operates one of the world’s largest nationwide WiMax networks via its operator subsidary Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd or “P1”in Malaysia. This announcement comes weeks after Green Packet agreed to supply modems many different WiMax providers in Asia Pacific.… Read the rest

The Capital Group Takes Stake in Green Packet For RM34.5mil

Elizabeth Dickey on January 5, 2010 | 3 comments

Through its subsidiary, Capital Research and Management Co., California-based The Capital Group Companies Inc. has taken a stake in Green Packet Bhd. Capital Research took roughly 30 million Green Packet shares (close to 5% stake at RM1.15 per share) for an investment outlay of RM34.5mil. Green packet is also undertaking a 10% private placement involving 84.8 million shares. The majority shareholders are Green Packet Holdings Ltd., with a 34.26% stake, and OSK Technology Ventures Sdn Bhd with 16.23%.

“Capital Research wanted a substantial and much larger stake. But there were not enough shares to go around. The existing majority shareholders also took up shares to maintain their percentage ownership,” said a source close to the deal.

The fact that The Capital Group has confidence in Green Packet does not come as a surprise given Green Packet’s WiMax business model. Unlike most WiMax competitors, Green Packet’s fourth-generation (4G) WiMax operator arm, Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd (P1), can leverage on an in-house developer and provider of 4G WiMax products with software solutions, thus giving them an upper hand in a very competitive, relevant, and up-and-coming market.

Green Packet’s 4G WiMax devices and connection management solutions currently rank among the top three globally in terms of shipment volume, and Capital Research recognized that P1 was a few steps ahead among the four WiMax players in Malaysia.

“Capital Research saw value in Green Packet’s WiMax business model locally and globally. In Malaysia, there are also no expensive licensing fees for WiMax operators unlike for the 3G operators,” the source said.

Since the launch of its mobile broadband service in August 2008, P1 has been growing at unprecedented measures. At the end of its first quarter on March 31, 2009, it added 25,500 users. P1 was able to maintain 25,000 net adds for the second quarter and then jumped to 36,000 net adds in the third.

Despite such success, P1 faced a technical backlog of its system in the last two months of 2009 due to the ever-increasing demand for their services. The problem has since been fixed, however it may have resulted in a shortfall on its 200,000 subscriber target. This being said, sources are confident that P1′s net adds are still higher in the fourth quarter than the 36,000 reported in the third.

Meanwhile, The Capital Group’s investment approach is very simple: Discover it early, buy it, and wait. … Read the rest

Department of Justice Urges More Spectrum for Wireless Broadband

Elizabeth Dickey on January 4, 2010 | 1 comment

On Monday, the Department of Justice urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to promote competition for broadband services by reallocating available spectrum to wireless providers and auctioning it in a way that would favor new competitors over incumbents that are currently dominating the market for high-speed internet.

The department’s comments, signed by its antitrust chief, Christine Varney, came in a 30-age written filing to the FCC, which is developing a national broadband plan due to Congress by February 17. The Justice Department said that the scarcity of available airwaves is a major obstacle to broadband competition and argued that companies like Clearwire Corp, Sprint Nextel Corp, and T-Mobile need more airwaves to compete with cable modem, DSL, or fiber optic-based services.

“Stated simply, without access to sufficient spectrum, a firm cannot provide state-of-the-art wireless broadband services. Reallocating spectrum that is being underutilized would encourage the deployment of wireless services and could help to make such services more competitive with wireline offerings,” said the Justice Department.

The department’s antitrust regulators argued that if the FCC auctions off more airwaves, it should question whether selling them to incumbent carriers like AT&T Inc. or Verizon Communications is the wisest choice. The question is whether or not the reallocated spectrum should be auctioned in a manner that puts the bids of incumbents at a disadvantage.Wireless carriers have generally supported the idea of devoting more airwaves for wireless broadband services. The largest wireless phone companies, AT&T and Verizon, would be apt to oppose any government effort that plans to ensure that they cannot bid for more airwaves. Spokesmen and women at both companies declined to comment on this topic.

Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, a consumer advocacy group said, “When a phone company like AT&T offers both wired and wireless Internet services in an area, it doesn’t have much incentive to compete with itself. If you have a view that says you need four or more competitors in this space…spectrum is the area that gives you the necessary competition.”

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and other agency officials say that the popularity of Apple Inc.‘s iPhone and the problems that AT&T have experienced coping with increased demand both demonstrate why the United States needs to devote more airwaves for wireless broadband services.

The need to identify and reallocate airwaves for wireless broadband will be … Read the rest

Progress in Jordan – Mada Launches 4G Wireless Network

Elizabeth Dickey on December 22, 2009

mada

The 4G wireless network was officially launched by Mada Communications in Jordan on Monday, confirming that headway is being made toward increasing internet penetration in the country since its initial implementation. The network is based on Motorola’s WiMax 802.16e technology and can offer download speeds reaching 8Mbits/s. The network was built on the company’s unique Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) backbone, which has more than 170 wireless sites within the kingdom and a wide variety of dedicated wireless and fiber internet connectivity options.

This most recent development demonstrates real growth and progress of WiMax in Jordan. Just last March, Mada Communications and Motorola partnered on the commercial launch of an end-to-end 802.16e-based WiMax network, offering customers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) voice and high speed data through broadband wireless services. At the time, the services were only available to wireless internet subscribers in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa with hopes of major growth elsewhere. Presently, barely nine months following the initial launch of WiMax in these three areas, the network has expanded to also cover Aqaba, Madaba, Jerash, Salt and the Dead Sea.

CEO of Mada, Charles Hage, told reporters that the network will cover more major cities in 2010 and mentioned that by the end of next year, the 4G wireless network will cover 90 percent of the country. Hage added that the network will help increase the rate of internet penetration which currently stands at 28 percent.… Read the rest

Sprint Launches U301 – First Dual Mode 3G/4G Wireless USB Modem

Elizabeth Dickey on December 21, 2009

Sprint has announced the launch of their USN U301, the carrier’s first dual-mode 3G/4G wireless USB modem. The device works on the new Clear WiMax network and allows for customers to connect with Sprint’s 4G WiMax network or its 3G mobile broadband network while on the go. Prior to the launch of the U301, Sprint’s official WiMax lineup has consisted of only one single modem, the U300.

The U301 offers 3G and WiMax the same way the U300 did, but it is smaller and comes with Mac and Windows 7 support. It offers peak downloads of more than 10Mbps with the WiMax network and peak downloads of 3.1Mbps on Sprint’s 3G network. The device will also connect to EVDO Rev. 0 and 1xRTT networks when not in a WiMax coverage area.

An authentication system ensures top-notch security. Additionally, GPS is on board for use with Sprint Navigation, Blackberry maps, and other location-based features. The U301 is compatible with PC and Mac computers. Retail price for the adapter is #349 but Sprint is offering a $299 instant rebate and $50 mail-in rebate, bringing the net hardware cost to zero. With 3G plans starting at $59.99 a month, the hybrid plan offers cheap coverage insurance an additional $10 a month – $69 monthly gets you both 3G and 4G service.… Read the rest

WiMax Deployments Go Global

Elizabeth Dickey on December 17, 2009 | 1 comment

Despite the recession and financial woes of the country’s economy, wireless broadband internet deployments based on WiMax have reached 519 in 146 countries, including 95 Wimax networks deployed by 2G mobile operators.

FDD WiMax was accepted into the IMT-2000 family of standards and more than 50 companies endorsed the IEEE 802.16m IMT-Advanced candidate proposal for a future-proof roadmap.

To support IMT-Advanced and the WiMax Forum evolution of its technology roadmap, leading suppliers and operators this year expressed their commitment to build and trial WiMax Release 2 based on the IEEE 802.16m standard. These ecosystem backers included Alvarion, Beceem, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei, Intel, KT, Motorola, Samsung, Sequands, UQC, Yota and ZTE.

The WiMax Forum also announced that in 2010 it will finalize its WiMax Release 2 specification in parallel with IEEE 802.16m and IMT-Advanced, ensuring that WiMax Release 2 networks and devices will remain backward compatible with legacy WiMax Release 1 based on IEEE 802.16e.

“Despite the global economy, WiMax is going strong in 2009,” said Ron Resnick, president and chairman of the WiMax Forum. “The WiMax Forum membership has continued to bring WiMax to new markets, certify devices and keep the spirit of delivering mobile Internet services to people throughout the world. We expect 2010 to bring new innovations to the WiMax ecosystem with completion of the IEEE 802.16m standard, commercialization of the global roaming program and new WiMax Forum programs to help bring certified devices to retail channels faster.”

In addition to an increase in the number of networks traced by WiMax, many of the already established WiMax networks continue to rapidly expand. A good example of such expansion includes the company Yota, which reached 250,000 active commercial users on its Russian network and passed the breakeven point with more than 2,300 subscribers added per day to its WiMax network. In April 2009, 65 product models from six vendors (Acer, Asus, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, Toshiba) with WiMax embedded chipsets were introduced to the Russian market. In 2010, Yota expects to add a new GSM + Mobile WiMax phone supporting VoIP over WiMax.

WIreless Internet service provider Clearwire has reached over 555,000 subscribers, covering more than 30 million consumers in 34 markets and has an average revenue per user (ARPU) of nearly $40. Malaysia’s Packet One Networks, which recently celebrated its one year mark of operations in 2009, has reached 130,000 subscribers. Korean company KT and … Read the rest

Mena Announces 33,000 WiMax Subscribers

Michael Licata on December 14, 2009

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Mena Telecom has signed up more than 33,000 WiMAX subscribers after a year of commercial operations.

It was the first company in the world to launch a nationwide commercial network using WiMAX mobile technology, said its chairman and KFH-Bahrain CEO Abdulhakeem Alkhayyat.

Alkhayyat also added that it had recently increased capacity by an additional 50 percent to accommodate the subscriber base. The company offers packages for both home and business users with speeds of up to 15Mbps.… Read the rest

Research Shows WiMax Use Growing

Michael Licata on December 4, 2009 | 1 comment

ABI Research recently announced that it expects almost 2 million WiMax users by the end of 2009. There are many providers and many different ways WiMax technology is being deployed.

In the United States, Clearwire has declared it has 173,000 subscribers. Another big WiMax market is Russia. Yota has been growing at a decent rate reaching 100,000 subscribers in August and 200,000 in October for WiMax service in Russia. PacketOne, a WiMax provider in Malaysia, has reached 130,000 subscribers.

UQ Communications once expected to reach 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2009 in South Korea. It is behind schedule in its rollout and will fall short of that initial target. South Korea has seen KT’s and SKT’s subscriber numbers remain stagnant, while these service providers prepare for another big push as a third WiMAX service provider comes to South Korea.t

The WiMax Forum Congress of Americas stated that there are 10 million WiMax subscripers worldwide in 540 WiMAX network deployments in 146 countries around the world. There are more than 150 deployments in the Americas alone.

Product providers flocked to Ft. Lauderdale to showcase their expansive WiMax products and to show what’s coming next. Beceem Communications said it is on track to sell 3 million WiMAX chips in 2009. The company announced the launch of “4G Turbo,” a number of Uplink performance improvements to the company’s 4G WiMAX chips. The 4G Turbo improvements further extend the performance of Beceem’s chips, and the features can be used in any WiMAX network as they work with every Wave 2-compliant 4G-WiMAX base station.… Read the rest

Radio Licenses Granted to Stratos

Michael Licata on December 2, 2009

Stratos Global Corp has been selected as the winning bidder for two of the three geographic zones for 2.5 GHz broadband radio service in the Gulf of Mexico. This will allow Stratos to cover approximately 90 percent of the structures and platforms in the three auctioned areas.

With the radio frequency, the company can provide both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint services to consumers. These services are ideal for fixed rigs or platforms, work boats and other vessels, and a wide range of mobile communications applications, with speed and bandwidth similar to those of DSL and cable lines.

In the past two years, Stratos spent 6 million dollars by investing in upgrades to expand the functionality and resilience of its microwave network. The company hopes to offer WiMAX services in the third quarter of 2010. It is in the process of selecting equipment vendors and working with potential customers to design, customize and prioritize its WiMax network.… Read the rest

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