February 2010

New 'White-Fi' Turning Heads

Elizabeth Dickey on February 1, 2010

Empty fragments scattered between used spectrum, dubbed ‘White Space’ can be used for offering long-range, low-cost wireless broadband without causing interference to existing users. Just last October, Microsoft executives met with officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to demonstrate how this ‘white space’ can be used to provide broadband services at a fraction of the cost incurred by existing players. Researchers at Redmond have been working with this technology for over two years and believe that it has the potential to be a game changer.

Analysts have said that only a very small percentage of the existing air waves are being utilized and yet operators face a severe crunch in spectrum due to a legacy of distribution and utilization. Microsoft has developed a platform that will dynamically scan the air waves and transmit data using the white space in spectrum. Though it is similar to Wi-Fi, ‘White-Fi’ supporters claim that their technology offers a far wider range and higher throughput.

“White-Fi is much more powerful than existing Wi-Fi networks and much more cost-effective than other broadband technologies such as WiMax. If a Wi-Fi network can transmit data through 200 feet, White-Fi can take it over 2km,” said Paul Mitchell, General Manager of Microsoft Corp.

Photo via Flickr courtesy of Stuck in Customs

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New ‘White-Fi’ Turning Heads

Elizabeth Dickey on February 1, 2010

Empty fragments scattered between used spectrum, dubbed ‘White Space’ can be used for offering long-range, low-cost wireless broadband without causing interference to existing users. Just last October, Microsoft executives met with officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to demonstrate how this ‘white space’ can be used to provide broadband services at a fraction of the cost incurred by existing players. Researchers at Redmond have been working with this technology for over two years and believe that it has the potential to be a game changer.

Analysts have said that only a very small percentage of the existing air waves are being utilized and yet operators face a severe crunch in spectrum due to a legacy of distribution and utilization. Microsoft has developed a platform that will dynamically scan the air waves and transmit data using the white space in spectrum. Though it is similar to Wi-Fi, ‘White-Fi’ supporters claim that their technology offers a far wider range and higher throughput.

“White-Fi is much more powerful than existing Wi-Fi networks and much more cost-effective than other broadband technologies such as WiMax. If a Wi-Fi network can transmit data through 200 feet, White-Fi can take it over 2km,” said Paul Mitchell, General Manager of Microsoft Corp.

Photo via Flickr courtesy of Stuck in Customs

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Wateen Telecom To Offer 110M Shares

Elizabeth Dickey on February 1, 2010 | 7 comments

Wateen Telecom Ltd, a Pakistani telecommunications company, plans to offer 110 million ordinary shares to the general public at a price of Rs 10 per share with a greenshoe option of 90 million.

Arif Habib Ltd has been mandated to act as the Financial Advisor and Arranger for the proposed Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Rs 2,000 million of the ordinary shares of Wateen Telecom. Proceeds will be utilized in meeting various financial obligations of the company and for the acquisition itself.

Wateen has launched WiMax services in over 20 cities and has partnered with Motorola, Cisco, and Intel.… Read the rest

WiMax 2: The Sequel

Elizabeth Dickey on February 1, 2010 | 1 comment

Though WiMax only made its major debut in the United States just over a year ago, providers, manufactures, and consumers are already looking at a new 802.16m standard.

Dubbed ‘WiMax 2′, this new standard is expected to receive final approval from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers this summer. Clearwire, the largest company offering commercial WiMax services, plans to test WiMax 2 in 2011 with hopes of deployment in 2012.

WiMax 2 will be backward compatible with 802.16e, the current WiMax standard in the U.S., meaning that when Clearwire upgrades to the new standard it will be at a relatively low cost with minimal disruption. WiMax 2 will be much faster than its predecessor and the new WiMax standard will deliver average downlink speeds of more than 100Mbps. These higher speeds will be delivered thanks to a combination of smart antenna technology and the use of a multi-channel apprach.

“Think of it like you’re building a 20-lane highway,” says Mohammad Shakouri, WiMax Forum president. “While it would be complicated to build out 20 lanes on the same highway, you could instead use two 10-lane highways or four five-lane highways. So this is how you can get higher data rates by using a combination of multiple channels.”

While WiMax 2 gives the technology a major speed boost, Shakouri has also said that it won’t propogate any farther than current technology that covers roughly 31 square miles per access point.

“The focus of 802.16m is on how to get a higher capacity data rate to the same amount of users today,” he explained.

The WiMax Forum is working on an 802.16m certification profile for developers that it hopes to have up ad running by the time IEEE finalizes the standard in September. If all goes according to plan, Shakouri says that we should start to see WiMax 2 devices hit the market one year later.

“The same thing happened with 802.16e, it took about a year after certification to get devices out,” he says. “So most of the industry expects you’ll be able to get network devices in the second half of 2011.”

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Merriman Curhan Initiates Coverage On Alvarion

Elizabeth Dickey on February 1, 2010 | 1 comment

Merriman Curhan Ford recently initiated coverage on Alvarion Ltd with a Buy rating. An analyist at Merriman pointed out how WiMax has been misconstrued in the past as a 4G LTE competitor.

Curhan is quoted saying, “WiMax is a real and commercially ready broadband wireless solution that supports speeds of up to 40 Mbps (going to 300 Mbps). Despite the global credit freeze and ensuing recession, WiMax has over 500 deployments in 147 countries. Alvarion is the leading independent supplier (with 20% market share) of this largely rationalizing multibillion dollar market opportunity. Although near-term visibility remains cloudy, we believe this is currently reflected in the stock. With $2.00 per share in net case and EPS potential of $.30-.40 in CY11 we believe investors will revisit the shares driven by 1) thawing of credit markets, 2) successful licensing in key markets (i.e. India), 3) U.S. broadband stimulus funds and 4) the emergence of new verticals. We are initiating coverage at Buy and see upside to $7-8 or 18x 2011 EPS plus net cash per share.”

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