Cell Life

WiMAX got a new lease of life yesterday in the developed world. Sprint announced a breakthrough agreement with ClearWire of Kirkland, Washington to create a joint venture under the name ClearWire but with 51% stake owned by Sprint, 27% by ClearWire investors and the remaining by some other high profile investors. Sprint is the third largest US wireless operator and is betting on WiMAX in 4G race as opposed to AT&T and Verizon, the two biggest US mobile operators, who are betting on GSM version of 4G called LTE or Long Term Evolution. WiMAX has the unique advantage over LTE as WiMAX equipment is available now and LTE is 2 years behind WiMAX.

The deal with ClearWire is a complex transaction with an alpha-soup list of investor firms participating including Comcast, Intel, Google, and cable operator Bright House Networks. Why are these firms interested ? Intel needs a new chip wave now that Centrino is everywhere already. Plus Intel has been investing in WiMAX chip development as the next evolution of the WiFi enabled chip. Google is the preferred search provider on ClearWire WiMAX devices and its Android platform will find a big network partner. Comcast and Bright House are looking for a way to expand into high speed mobile services and wireless broadband - now that AT&T and Verizon are beginning to erode cable market share with their own high speed TV offerings and innovative quad-play bundling of wireless, wireline, TV and internet. Essentially bundling is the new mantra for getting customers and cable providers need a wireless channel partner to cover this one missing piece in the cable package.

With this WiMAX deal, Sprint has one less thing to worry as it was coming from low cash liquidity position and needed money to launch a 4G offering - it got its wish fulfilled by getting some partners with big pockets to invest in its nascent 4G endeavour. Now it can go back to focusing or investing in its core CDMA business and in time make it attractive enough to sell to interested parties, eg Deutsche Telekom at a good price. Sprint Xohm service, its WiMAX trial launch service, is all but dead or in essence, will be merged into ClearWire. Sprint is taking a non-operating role in ClearWire and is talking about having ClearWire manage itself independently with separate wireless assets and separate management structure.

Well - the ClearWire deal looks interesting on the face of it and Sprint does have one less thing to worry about now that its WiMAX / 4G path is clear. But in reality, the challenges remain. With an alpha-soup combination of ClearWire investors, this firm will be chauffeured by multiple backers with sometimes varying agendas. Historically speaking, such complex deals have a high failure rate. Plus it remains to be seen if Sprint core CDMA service ends up competing with its WiMAX offering. We think success of ClearWire depends on letting it be a truly independent company with dedicated management and letting it compete openly.

In any case, WiMAX got a new lease on life. Now with this announcement, it will trigger a chain reaction and network equipment vendors like Nortel, Samsung, AirSpan, Lucent etc will make hay by selling WiMAX equipment. Intel will sell chips for WiMAX - PCs with WiMAX-enabled chips will be hot. More PC software will be sold.  Google gets a mobile momentum on next generation wireless network. Cable firms have a high speed mobile partner. Nokia and other device makers will sell high end WiMAX phones. Consumers get truly personal mobile broadband everywhere, on their cellphones and laptops. They can potentially ditch their wired DSL or cable modems and replace it with wireless broadband. Everybody is happy at the end of the day. Lets see if this theory works or not. Regardless, the ClearWire announcement may trigger a larger WiMAX adoption in other developed countries. So far WiMAX growth story was limited to developing countries in Asia, Sprint announcement is a big boost to this technology in the western hemisphere.

MT 

Here we provide a simple technology comparison for various 4G technologies in mobile space. Hope you find this useful.

This is our first content post. We thought we will start with something which is a hot topic nowadays in wireless world everywhere. This has to do with whether the new WiMAX technology is going to make it or not.

Well - we have seen many obituaries written on WiMAX. But it seems to persist in large pockets of the world and there are real projects being done and real money being made in WiMAX. Some of the large installations include Unwired in Australia which started with a Navini Networks (now Cisco) solution way back in 2003. Unwired is a large wireless broadband provider in some metros in Australia and has done fairly well with a WiMAX strategy. Reliance, Airtel and Tata all are deploying regional WiMAX in various metros of India. We see projects in Middle East, Sprint’s Xohm service trials in United States, several projects in Latin America. So next time somebody tells me that WiMAX is a dying technology, I take it with a pinch of salt.

What is WiMAX

WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) is a 4G wireless technology having service capabilities in regulated and unregulated spectrum (though our customers and OEM partners are slowly moving away from using WiMAX in unregulated spectrum).  WiMAX comes from IP / microwave side similar to its cousin WiFi (which is from IP world) as opposed to HSPA, GPRS and UMTS which are GSM flavors of 2.5G/3G wireless tech. The 4G version in GSM evolution path is LTE (Long Term Evolution) - something which is two years away but gaining traction with largest mobile operators in the world eg AT&T and Verizon in USA have announced intention to adopt LTE rather than try WiMAX. But WiMAX has a first mover advantage as it is available with large OEM and vendor support. So many folks around the world are trying this rather than wait out for a full-blown LTE rollout in another 2 years or so.

Why WiMAX

WiMAX allows speeds of 2-4 Mbps in early trials on the downlink and 1-2 Mbps on the uplink in wireless communications from mobile phones, laptops, WiMAX CPE (customer modems) etc, in effect matching the DSL or lower end cable modem speeds of today. WiMAX offers personal broadband to folks who want high speed wireless connectivity anywhere, anytime. Of course one needs WiMAX compatible chip sets in laptops or WiMAX enabled phones for the mobility aspect of it. For home or office use, WiMAX can be deployed as a modem (called a CPE or customer premise equipment) inside or outside a home or building. WiMAX equipment can communicate with WiMAX base stations in cell towers several miles away without signal degradation. As a result, we are talking about high speed wireless mobile TV, multimedia gaming, streaming media, P2P apps, VOIP etc.

WiMAX standards are administered by a body called the WiMAX Forum which describes WiMAX as “a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL”.

WiMAX offers non- line-of-sight communication between Base Station and the customer CPE which is a great practical advantage and makes it a viable competitor to DSL or cable.

WiMAX Technology

There are two flavors of WiMAX - Fixed WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX - they are based on IEEE 802.16d and 802.16e specification respectively. In simple terms, Fixed WiMAX allows a cable or DSL line substitute but no mobility or roaming between cells. Mobile WiMAX allows mobility and handoff between Base Stations so can operate like a true wireless network.

Typically, WiMAX is being deployed in the 2.5-2.7 GHz range in USA and 3.3-3.5 GHz range in Europe and Asia but there are exceptions to this rule.

WiMAX involves the following equipment - Base Stations on cell towers and CPE or customer premise equipment or receivers. CPE are similar to our DSL modems or cable modems or can be externally installed equipments. In-building/In-home WiMAX modems promise to revolutionize broadband access for homes and businesses and serve as a compelling replacement for DSL or cable internet subscribers.

Intel has made available WiMAX chips in laptops (though we hear different versions as to level of interest of Intel in this area). As to mobile phones, several mobile phone manufacturers have announced intention to make WiMAX phones in large numbers.

WiMAX is a last mile wireless access solution. It needs a backhaul network or the core transmission over a large area - the backhaul can be T1 lines from local TELCOs, line-of-sight WiMAX towers themselves or even satellite communications for remote areas. WiMAX does require more advanced backhaul than traditional wireless networks hence fiber-based backhaul or microwave point-to-point backhaul is very appropriate for WiMAX.

Other 4G technologies

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the most prominent threat to WiMAX technology. LTE is the 4G flavor of GSM evolution path and hence more likeable by GSM carriers and some major CDMA vendors around the world. Since GSM is the dominant standard in the world in wireless networks, LTE is seen as a likely winner in 4G space especially among large operators around the world. Mobile WiMAX has had trials in 10Mbps range (over a 10Km distance) but Nokia has done trials of LTE in which it has achieved 100 Mbps data transfer speeds with LTE equipment.

UMB or Ultra Mobile Broadband is the CDMA version of 4G developed by Qualcomm which also promotes the CDMA standard. Verizon Wireless, the giant CDMA operator in United States, shocked the world when it announced an intention to migrate to LTE instead of UMB in the 4G evolution. Verizon may still go the UMB-way; we will see how this plays out. UMB can achieve the same speeds as LTE for wireless broadband access.

Interested in more on WiMAX and LTE..stay tuned for further posts and CellStrat white papers which will discuss this topic more extensively. Meanwhile we would love to get your thoughts or feedback on this interesting new space..

TR