Is the global economic outlook getting you down? Does the business section of your local newspaper depress you? Fortunately, there’s hope, in the form of a quick Google search: there is plenty of news on WiMAX technology floating around the Internet this week, and most of it positive.

Our first item, from the Washington Business Journal, announces the final merger of Clearwire Corp. with Sprint’s WiMAX business, Xohm. If you’ve had your doubts about the ability of Sprint to pull off a successful WiMAX network, this news might boost your confidence. Clearwire comes to the table with $3.2 billion in investments from a group of heavy-hitters in media and telecommunications, including Google, Intel, Comcast, Bright House Networks, and Time Warner Cable. Though Sprint and Clearwire have both seen their stock prices decline further after the announcement of their merger, the final approval of the merger by Clearwire shareholders is a resounding vote of confidence in the long-term promise of WiMAX technology, bolstered by the significant investment of a consortium of industry giants. Google in particular has demonstrated a pattern of quietly rolling out products which offer the greatest convenience and value for the consumer, even when their development requires Google to expend more time, effort, and money behind the scenes. Though many analysts and commentators suspect that other 4G technologies will emerge as easier and cheaper options for companies to pursue, the support of Google and other industry leaders for the Clearwire/Sprint venture sends a message of belief in WiMAX as a strong business venture, worth pursuing with billions of dollars in investments even in the midst of a turbulent financial climate.

More recently, Airspan has offered up another positive news item, announcing that it has successfully demonstrated a seamless handover from one frequency band to another on a mobile WiMAX network in the UK. Airspan’s demonstration of the ability of WiMAX devices to switch between frequency bands with no interruption in service will undoubtedly make WiMAX even more attractive – and affordable – for network operators, who will have the potential to build single networks of two or more frequency bands in order to expand coverage. Enhanced roaming capabilities may also make WiMAX mobile broadband more enticing for end users, which can only help carriers to market WiMAX technology as unique and ground-breaking, and to draw a clearer line between the promise of WiMAX and the lingering specter of failed efforts at providing long-range, high-speed wireless service.

Here is a small clip from the Mobile Monday Event in the Samsung Center that we streamed from our pda using quik. Ari Zoldan spoke on an expert panel along with Robert Samuels of the New York Times and Carl Taylor of Hutchison Whampoa Europe. During the discussion, Ari explained how one can create a personal WiFi hotspot with one of the many cutting edge Cradlepoint routers. You can use these routers with a USB or PCMCI data card or throught a usb connection to your data phone or PDA. Furthermore, many of these routers will soon have Wimax or 4G capabilities. Check out the Cradlepoint Routers on http://www.quantum-wireless.com and http://www.Wimax.net

Mobile Monday New York presents Broadband everywhere, the mobile opportunity. Monday, 22 Sept 2008 at the Samsung Experience Center, 10 Columbus Circle, NYC

The current rollout of HSPA [High Speed Packet Access] is creating new business opportunities that exploit mobile broadband. The huge sales of USB modems reveal an emerging market that is different from pocket broadband on handsets. Mobile broadband is competing with WiFi due to always-connected mobility, ease of access and flat rate data plans. Carriers are developing HSPA and WiMax capabilities, deploying femtocells and partnering to provide xDSL connection to their core networks.

In Europe, the market has already transitioned from one dominated by visionary mobile broadband customers, to a mainstream market dominated by pragmatic customers. In the US, more people are using Web-friendly handsets and consuming more Web content overall, particularly content that lies outside carriers’ portals.

Meanwhile industry bodies - in conjunction with a raft of PC OEMs – are creating a new Mobile Broadband logo and branding campaign for wireless broadband in laptops, aiming to educate the public about ‘broadband inside’.

MoMo New York presents a discussion on the impacts of mobile broadband on carriers, content providers, laptop manufacturers and infrastructure vendors. We are happy to announce the following distinguished speakers:

Moderator:

• Lubna Dajani, Stratemerge

Panelists:

• Carl Taylor, Director of Applications & Services, Hutchison Whampoa Europe
• Ari Zoldan, CEO, Quantum Networks, LLC
• Robert Samuels, Director, Mobile Products, The New York Times

Google has announced an aggressive push to bring broadband internet service in to the emerging markets with a strong concentration into Africa. It’s attempting to launch 16 satellites connecting half of the world. The search engine giant has teamed up with John Malone, the cable giant, and HSBC, the international bank behemoth, to set up what they are calling O3B Networks. Their mission in what seems to be a clear objective, is to bring an alternative to fiber, given the fact that the financial viability of running fiber throughout the continent is too expensive.

The announcement for ordering up 16 low-earth orbit satellites from the French aerospace company, Thales Alenia, is expected to be the first stage of a 750 million dollar infusion into the project. In addition, there has been a small contribution by Allen & Company, a media advisory firm, of 20 million dollars. According to Larry Elder, product manager in Google’s alternative access group, “the project could bring the cost of bandwidth in such markets down by 95%”. He further states, “This really fits into Google’s mission to extend internet use around the developing world.”

This is an opportune time for the Wimax community to step up and take some very serious initiative to introduce its technology as a clear bridge for long range distribution to their end-users. The only foreseeable alternative to Wimax distributing the satellites’ broadband signal, would be Long Term Evolution (LTE). However, the standards for this technology have not even been drafted. This is why WiMAX is perfectly positioned to be the alternative true access for optimal broadband in third world countries.

Potentially, this is a tremendous boost for WiMAX technology and all of its mobile applications. Several networks in Africa are already utilizing WiMAX technology and are being hailed a huge success. Assuming Google goes the way of WiMAX, its objective to bring internet to every single person on the planet is within clear reach.

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.

Airspan received some negative publicity back in March from Buzz Broadband but continues to be a respected provider of WiMAX solutions. Vodacom Lesotho, a subsidiary of the Pan-African cellular communications company, has officially selected Airspan to be its WiMAX provider.

Vodacom offers world class GSM service, a standard collection of applications and features available to mobile phone subscribers, to more than 23 million customers in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho and Mozambique. Partnering with Airspan will allow Vodacom to provide subscribers with IP data services as a substitute to fixed line broadband access. “Airspan will supply its MicroMAX base stations in the 3.3 - 3.5 GHz frequency band in addition to CPEs (customer premise equipment).” Vodacom believes that Airspan’s solution is perfect, particularly in rural areas, for rapid deployment.

Airspan’s MicroMAX system provides a low-cost, high-performance point-to-multipoint IEEE 802.16 compliant solution. This OFDM based architecture is suited to deliver high-speed data, Voice Over IP (VoIP), and multimedia services to residential, SOHO (small office/home office), and SME (small medium enterprise). MicroMAX offers service providers an integrated access solution, providing quick-to-market deployment and low-market entry cost for broadband services in an expandable “pay as you grow” model. CNN Money News

Given the failure of Airspan’s partnership with Buzz Broadband, Airspan hopes winning this contract with Vodacom will highlight the flexibility and scalability of Airspan’s base stations and CPEs.

While WiMAX tends to have a futuristic image, the Convergence India exhibition in Delhi proved that WiMAX and 3G mobile phone services may be affordable to the lay user sooner than predicted.

Crowds gathered at the Alcatel-Lucent stand to experience the zippy speeds of WiMAX — allowing them to stream smooth video footage, browse the Internet, carry on a video phone conversation with someone on another continent — all at the same time, around five million bits per second.
Making it happen was a matchbox-sized plug-in card that fitted into what is called the PCMCIA slot of a laptop computer.
It was visible proof that superior WiMAX speeds could be experienced today on any laptop with hardware not much different from the wireless data cards now offered by all leading Indian mobile providers. The Hindu, Anand Parthasarathy

The speed of WiMAX that allows for such multitasking is a huge attraction especially in our fast paced environment. Yet, despite the optimistic news in Delhi for WiMAX believers, doubts have been made clear by Garth Freeman, CEO of Hervey Bay’s Buzz Broadband and Australia’s first WiMAX operator. In fact, Freeman has concluded that WiMAX technology is a “miserable failure.” According to Freeman, while the main selling point of WiMAX technology to entice people to switch has been the Internet applications, the non line of sight performance was so poor that such applications including VoIP would not work.

As WiMAX technology continues to be experimented with and tested in real world applications, we will see whether or not it pays to be a believer.

Since the introduction of the mobile phone, the land-line telephone has slowing become an endangered species. The addicting Blackberry is quickly settling itself as “man’s best friend.” As life moves faster, we are predisposed to demand services and products that satisfy our on-the-go attitude.

In line with such a demand, NextWave Wireless, Inc has just recently launched MXtv. Wireless Design and Development Asia describes MXtv as:

“a breakthrough mobile multicast and broadcast technology that enables WiMAX operators to deliver a broad range of rich and personalized multimedia services including mobile TV, interactive media services, and digital audio without having to invest in new spectrum or additional radio access network equipment… With the unique ability to interleave broadcast content with voice and data content in each user transmission, MXtv enables WiMAX network operators to maximize service revenues by allowing them to dynamically optimize the mix of voice, data, and broadcast services on each RF carrier based on user demand, service pricing and advertising revenue. Furthermore, over 300 high fidelity radio broadcast channels or any combination of mobile TV, personalized radio, voice and data services can be offered in the same 10 MHz of spectrum”.

Having already affected the entertainment and media industry, it will be interesting to see how advertising will adapt to the speedy growth of mobile technology. With the introduction of MXtv, WiMAX has the potential to enable video delivery and thus commercials/video advertisements. Consumer’s ability to receive mobile TV and personalized radio on their mobile devices can improve the personalization or customization of entertainment and media directed toward individual users. While the ability to tailor advertisements and the reach of those advertisements may at first thought seem like a dream come true. The actual implementation of such a dream will be a challenge for advertisers and marketers to do successfully. As the customer population becomes more and more segmented by the personalization of media, advertising becomes more complicated. Still, it is interesting to explore the potential impact of WiMAX will have outside of the technology industry.

Broadband Wireless Exchange Magazine has reported on the development of a portable WiMAX VoIP cell phone. It features all-IP voice communication with mobile internet capabilities. The telephone was jointly developed by NetIndex Inc., Kaga Electronics Co., Ltd. and Runcom Technologies Ltd and was displayed at the Mobile World Conference in 2008.

Along a similar vein, EMSNow reports on several different developments for WiMAX products in Taiwan. Companies like MediaTek, Asustek Computer, GemTek Technology and many others have plans for shipping their WiMAX-enabled products within this year. Products range from WiMAX chips, and laptops to CPEs, with plenty of talk of increases in shipments within the year. For more details, check out the EMSNow article. Clearly the products industry is revving up for WiMAX.

InformationWeek reports that Intel, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Network demonstrated an early version of a Wi-Fi/WiMAX network solution at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The technology is designed to allow mobile devices to seamlessly move from a Wi-Fi connection to a WiMAX connection with no disruption in internet access.  It works by responding to several different triggers; for example, a weakening Wi-Fi signal. Before the Wi-Fi signal is entirely lost, one is able to simultaneously connect to a WiMAX signal, leaving any online work unaffected by the switchover.

The article goes on to state the value of such a development:

Such anywhere, anytime connectivity is pivotal to mainstream adoption of future Internet-enabled devices, capable of accessing multimedia and other services over the Web. Intel and other companies are investing billions in the technology needed to build and support such devices, which are the future of mobile computing, proponents say.

Technologies like this are pivotal in terms of dual access, especially in moving some out of the familiarity of Wi-Fi into the still-somewhat-unfamiliar realm of WiMAX connectivity. But perhaps most valuable is the seamless quality of what Intel and Nokia are developing and what that will mean for mobile access.