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.

The negative comments shared by Garth Freeman, CEO at Buzz Broadband, in regards to WiMAX technology have spurred Airspan, the WiMAX equipment supplier to retaliate and defend its technology. According to Airspan, Buzz Broadband lacked the technical and financial resources required to operate a performing network. In regards to Freeman’s specific qualm concerning the short distance that the WiMAX network was able to operate successfully in, Airspan blamed Buzz Broadband’s decision to purchase less-expensive micro-cell base stations. Cheaper base stations resulted in a trade off of range performance.

The future of WiMAX is still to be discovered and will continue to stir debate but I find the most insightful observations concerning the Buzz Broadband/Airspan situation was made by Nordic Nowire CEO Michael Blomqvist. Blomqvist acknowledges the mistakes made by Buzz Broadband. However, he also notes that such mistakes are typical and therefore Airspan and other WiMAX vendors need to take greater responsibility when it comes to educating carriers.

As far as Blomqvist’s opinion of WiMAX, he feels that:

vendors have over-hyped WiMAX, promising features and then not delivering. At the same time, WiMAX does offer a better price/performance ratio compared to competing mobile broadband technologies—when done right.” TMCNet, Arvind Arora