Receive new posts as email.
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |||||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
| 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| 31 |
This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator.
Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2010 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.
Powered by
Movable Type
Sprint will sell its Overdrive, a router that handles 3G and WiMax, starting 10 January: The device, $100 with a two-year contract, works with either 3G CDMA or 4G WiMax, preferring the 4G network. It's $60 per month, which includes unlimited WiMax usage and 5 GB of 3G. The device appears to be nomadic, rather than mobile: that is, intended to be taken from place to place, but not used while in motion. (It's unclear whether or not there's a car adapter included.)
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 1:31 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, WiMAX | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
Clearwire says it has covered 20 sq mi of Silicon Valley with its service for testing: This isn't a commercially deployed network; rather, it's intended to cover major Clearwire partners' California campuses, including Intel (which has long had early test and now commercial WiMax up around Portland), Cisco, and Google. Cities covered include Santa Clara, Mountain View, and parts of Palo Alto. The full Bay Area commercial deployment is slated for next year. (Intel and Google are investors.)
The network will allow developers to test applications and service in real coverage circumstances, while Clearwire can experiment with hardware and software tweaks without disrupting users.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:28 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, WiMAX | No Comments
As expected, Comcast will resell Clearwire's WiMax service: The Comcast High-Speed 2Go brand will be powered by Clearwire, starting in Portland. Comcast is focused on the mobile part, of course, since the company has its own extensive residential and business fixed broadband portfolio. Comcast has invested in Clearwire, and has previously resold Sprint Nextel service, as well.
The company will offer a Metro plan and card that works only in the WiMax footprint area, and a Nationwide plan and card that offers 3G everywhere Sprint has it, and 4G within WiMax footprints.
Comcast is using the power of the bundle, where the reduced cost in presenting and collecting multiple bills results in savings for the company and the consumer, with a 12-month introductory rate. A $50/mo bundle pairs 12 Mbps home cable broadband with WiMax service; consumers can add national 3G service for another $20/mo. The rate after 12 months is $73/mo for WiMax and $93/mo for 3G+WiMax, or $30 to $50 above the current 12 Mbps broadband rate. You pay separately for a broadband dongle, likely under $100, but that information wasn't provided yet.
Clearwire charges $50/mo for unlimited consumer roaming, and has a variety of business plans for shared bandwidth among multiple accounts. Sprint has a combined 3G/4G plan that's $80/mo (with a 2-year contract) that includes 5 GB per month of 3G bandwidth and unlimited 4G bandwidth. Comcast appears to be following both firms' leads on that topic.
With either plan, it looks like a fairly enormous discount, especially during the introductory year, but also thereafter.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:57 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, Road Warrior, Roaming, WiMAX | No Comments
Sure, Clearwire has Baltimore and Portland, but Atlanta eclipses those: The Clear network in Atlanta spans 1,200 sq mi and passes 3m people. Given the hideous commute and highway backups, I can see a ubiquitous network that's cheaper than and faster than 3G competitors being a windshield warrior and mobile work team must-have. Clearwire maintains that 4 to 6 Mbps downstream is typical, with an over 15 Mbps burst rate.
Clearwire pairs the Atlanta announcement with a laundry list of gear customers can use to connect, which has increased considerably in the last few months.
Wireless networks are always a chicken-and-egg problem. Wi-Fi insinuated itself into nearly every mobile device because there was no network lock in. You could install one hot spot and have one adapter and have all the freedom you needed to cut the cord. Wi-Fi became cheap to include in mobile devices years ago, and required no carrier or regulator relationship.
Cellular 3G and 4G networks have a harder row to hoe because every adapter will have both high cost and provider lock in. 3G cell modems are starting to become a standard feature on some netbooks and laptops, although it's a financial risk to the makers of these computers, as the underlying cost of mobile broadband modems remains high. If the user never activates the modem, or cancels within a short period, the buyer isn't bearing the full cost of that adapter based on the current model. (It's not clear whether carriers and/or modem makers absorb some of this risk to ship more adapters and gain more customers, too.)
For Clearwire, it's a bit different, because Motorola and Samsung are both major investors and principle equipment manufacturers. This can be awkward, because the two makers can't offer gear to Clearwire at cost, but neither do they have a motivation to extract every last dollar.
Clearwire notes in this release how many WiMax adapter are now available, and in what variety. For laptops, there's a $60 (or $5/mo) USB modem. This takes care of legacy laptops and even desktop computers. USB modems for 3G networks have multiplied and added features (such as having a microSD slot) because the ability to move the modem among multiple computers is desirable.
For home users, there's the Clear Residential Modem, which is $80 or $5/mo; voice calling requires an additional $15 adapter and a $25/mo calling plan (competitive with Vonage, and from half to one-third less than Comcast's).
Apparently, this is the soft launch of Clearwire's Clear Spot, a Wi-Fi/WiMax gateway ($140), which is battery powered and requires a Clear USB modem. As I previously noted ("Clearwire Offers CradlePoint WiMax/Wi-Fi Hotspot," 31-March-2009), this is a Clearwire-enabled version of a product that CradlePoint has offered for some time. On the laptop side, Clearwire lists a variety of Dell, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Samsung, and Toshiba notebooks and netbooks. A Panasonic Toughbook is coming later this year.
An anticipated 3G/4G broadband modem is due "this summer," which will combine Sprint 3G with Clearwire WiMax, and start allowing business customers in Clear coverage areas to upgrade to have the benefit of a faster network at home and roaming while away, or in weak WiMax coverage areas.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:34 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: 2.5G and 3G, 4G, WiMAX | No Comments
Or will Clearwire remain standing while the Sprint 2G/3G firm goes under? Sprint's latest revenue and earnings are pretty horrifically bad. The company has been shedding operations and divisions for years like a rapidly falling balloon trying to heave off ballast to stay aloft. The company spun off its wireline division as Embarq; its 4G network portfolio and operations to the new Clearwire, of which it owns 51 percent; and now may throw 5,000 to 7,000 workers an Ericsson group to handle cellular network management.
You don't take your core operational responsibility and outsource it and expect to survive, I'm afraid. Sprint runs a perfectly fine network, but by outsourcing to Ericsson, it shifts the objective to Ericsson producing a profit at a specific quality level rather than having operational quality be a core company mandate. (This is no knock on Ericsson, which could be a firm of superstars. It's just that Ericsson's interests aren't aligned with Sprint's.)
The Associated Press, as most accounts do, ignores Sprint Nextel's continued failed migration of public safety networks to new frequencies, a multi-year failure allowed by the FCC, and for which Sprint still has billions in reserve to pay for--but also an uncapped liability. At some point, it's possible that the number of remaining networks and the cost for buying new gear and moving public-safety systems will swamp the company more than its negative earnings and drop in postpaid subscribers. I'm always stunned when I don't see this mentioned, because it's a constant weight on the company's future.
It's possible that Sprint could disappear or be absorbed into Verizon, the only company with compatible CDMA network technology, and that would leave the WiMax division potentially on its own, or with a new majority owner that wouldn't allow it to thrive.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:03 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, Financial, Public Safety, WiMAX | 1 Comment
Clearwire unveiled the Clear Spot Personal Hotspot: Yes, the firm needs help with naming, but it's a great idea to push early adoption outside the home. The CradlePoint-developed device is a WiMax-to-Wi-Fi gateway designed for nomadic use due to its built-in battery. Plug in a Clear USB modem, and you're good to go over 802.11b and 802.11g wherever. The device will retail for $139; the USB modem costs $49 and can be used on a pay-as-you-go basis ($10 per day) or with monthly mobile subscriptions. It will be available in Clear markets in mid-April.
The Clear Spot appears to be a rebranded version of CradlePoint's PHS300, which has a built-in lithium-ion battery and can be recharged via or used with an AC adapter. The PHS300 works with a variety of cell modems and lists for $179.99.
This is an extremely smart move on Clearwire's part because it signals two things: The company knows that it'll take a while to develop an ecosystem of WiMax-enabled devices; and it wants customers to use its network extensively instead of imposing lots of limits.
If Clearwire can deliver on its top download speeds (4 Mbps with mobile gear), that's a big bump up from the 600 Kbps to 1.7 Mbps downstream rate promised by various 3G carriers. Of course, AT&T is aiming to double its speed through what's described as a software upgrade (to 7.2 Mbps HSPA), and Clearwire suffers from 384 Kbps upload speeds which now compares unfavorably with even 3.6 Mbps HSPA and EVDO Rev. A.
Clearwire has an advantage on mobile data limits, however, because the company apparently believes it has such a big pool and such a large spectrum swath that it can offer an unlimited plan. Whenever I've asked Clearwire what unlimited means, the firm says, really, unlimited. It'll shut down abusers, but it will apparently look at patterns, not quantity.
The Clear service has an unlimited mobile offering for $50/month with no commitment; contracts and bundle discounts drop the price to $40/month and waive a $35 activation fee. A 200 MB per month plan is an appalling $30/month, but likely targeted as a bundle for home users where it's heavily discounted. A more moderate $40/month 2 GB usage plan can be bundled, too; each additional GB is $10 in a calendar month.
Businesses pay on a different scale that offers a better deal but more "risk" of overages, too. An account is priced with two devices (included) under a 2-year contract, with 15 GB/month for $100/month up to 30 GB/month for $150/month. Additional GB are $10 each.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 4:33 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, Road Warrior, WiMAX | No Comments
Clearwire will roll out WiMax service in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Seattle, and elsewhere in 2009: Then Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. are slated for 2010, along with other cities not yet announced. The planned footprint passes 120 million people in 80 markets by 2010, the company said.
Clearwire released these details in an earnings announcement today. The company had a net loss of $432m in 2008 and just 475,000 customers, although the firm raised $3.2b in financing for its massive expansion.
Clearwire also announced two products designed to integrate WiMax with existing gear. One is what it calls a "personal hot spot," a device that has both a WiMax gateway and a Wi-Fi router built in. Pricing wasn't mentioned; it will be available in March.
The second is an expected 3G/4G cellular modem due mid-year that will roam between Sprint's 3G network footprint and Clearwire's 4G WiMax network. This device is absolutely critical for business travelers.
Still to come are Intel Centrino-2 based laptops with an integrated WiMax/Wi-Fi chipset, which Clearwire says 26 models of which have already been certified by the WiMax Forum. That's the other component for business use: When these ship, and businesses in cities with near-term deployment decide that it's worth the price or not, we'll see how WiMax fares against existing 3G networks.
As a Seattle resident, I expected to see Seattle's unwiring in 2009. It would have to be embarrassing for an operator like Clearwire to have executives and others visit its Kirkland, Wash., headquarters--and not be able to use the company's service.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:37 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, WiMAX | No Comments
Monica Paolini writes up her experience last week with Clear in Portland: Paolini, a Seattle-area wireless industry consultant, has a stake in WiMax--she's consulted for players in the industry--but she's also consistently honest about how technology performs. She visited Portland, Ore., for the Clearwire WiMax launch (under the Clear brand name), and collected some spot measurements of static indoor and outdoor service, as well as mobile. She plotted her test locations on a map.
The results are fairly stunning, with fast service almost everywhere, and few interruptions. WiMax's key current advantage is speed, with rates that could be 2 to 4 times the fastest available on cellular data networks, or as much as 5 to 10 times the mid-range to lower-end of cellular speeds.
Now, of course, Clearwire is throwing a lot more bandwidth at the wireless broadband problem: 10 MHz channels instead of 1.25 MHz (EVDO) or 5 MHz (UMTS/HSPA).
WiMax isn't suddenly proven to be the technology it's been promised to be, but the early reports continue to be good. What will define WiMax as a success is whether Clearwire can consistently deliver speeds, make mobile access work reliably, deal with congestion if they get a lot of uptake, and have an equipment ecosystem from their vendors that allows inexpensive adapters and home gateways.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 1:21 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: WiMAX | No Comments
Clearwire has finally launched a second city: Portland, Ore., close by to Intel's headquarters in Beaverton, finally gets WiMax coverage. This is the first network under the Clear brand, the service that's being deployed by the new Clearwire, a merger of the old Clearwire and the WiMax assets of Sprint Nextel. Over 700 sq mi are covered in the metropolitan region.
It was a poorly kept secret that Intel employees have been using WiMax service in the area for a couple of years, starting at their campus and eventually expanding out as the network was lit up for testing. Portland is an ideal early commercial market, however, because there's such a mix of old and new infrastructure, as well as suburbs and something like exurbs/rural not far from the city's boundaries due to an urban growth boundary.
From what I can tell, the impetus to get a city-wide Wi-Fi network (started by MetroFi, but never completed) was because of the uneven ability to get high-speed broadband. Clearwire's 768 Kbps to 6 Mbps residential service is price from $20 to $40 per month, which might be higher in some cases than comparable cable or DSL--but only if that cable or DSL is available. Business services may be far cheaper than landline offerings, while mobile and fixed bundles are much cheaper than anything the cell and wireline broadband companies can offer together so far.
Portland is served by Qwest, which is way behind in offering fiber-connected services, although it's finally rolling them out. Some of the suburbs are handled by Verizon, which is offering Fios in some places, its fiber-to-the-home service. (GTE once had parts of Washington and Oregon, and that operation was eventually folded into Verizon.)
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 7:33 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: WiMAX | No Comments | No TrackBacks
It's no secret that Portland had WiMax service: It's just that you couldn't buy it. Intel has been WiMax with Clearwire for many months--it may be nearly 18 months now, if I recall correctly. Intel employees have been walking around the city and their campus in Beaverton with WiMax cards in their laptops, and not allowed to talk about it.
Thus, it's no surprise that the first market for Clear, the new brand for the combined Clearwire/Sprint Xohm operations, is Portland. I just qualified an address there of a friend, and find that the service can be ordered for the home with prices from $20/mo for 768 Kbps/128 Kbps to $40/mo for 6 Mbps/512 Kbps. Mobile prices are all rated for 4 Mbps/384 Kbps with monthly data limits: $30/mo for 200 MB, $40/mo for 2 GB, $50/mo for unlimited.
There's also a $35 activation fee, and a modem fee: $175 or $5 per month. This is far higher than Sprint's subsidized $50 modem deal with Xohm. Expect that to be harmonized.
Note that Clearwire suggests you read their Terms of Service for more details. As far as I can tell, unlimited isn't footnoted with a 5 GB or other limit. They will still obviously check for abuse, and the low upstream rates make it both difficult to run services and painfully clear if you are.
The upstream speeds are still far too slow. WiMax can be configured to allow relatively symmetric upstream rates, and I expect we'll see more of that as an option as Clearwire learns usage patterns.
The ordering process doesn't suggest that you have to wait, while Clearwire was saying yesterday that Portland service would be available in 2009. This might be noted when you consummate the order.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:32 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: WiMAX | No Comments
Because we didn't have enough on our minds on election day, the FCC met and made three relatively massive decisions: Let's start with white spaces. I have been avoiding posting too much about the topic, because it's mindbendingly boring to the average reader or businessperson who is more interested in technology or developments when they happen, not when they're discussed ad nauseum. The gist of the white spaces proposal is that computer industry giants want television channels that are unused in specific markets to provide assurance of a lack of interference among adjacent channels.
Microsoft, Google, Intel, HP, and many others covet the space to use for high-speed wireless networking for broadband and wireless LANs. Over short distances, rates rival 802.11n Wi-Fi speeds; over longer distances, speeds will likely be closer to 10 Mbps. The expectation is that the frequencies, way down in the 54 to 698 MHz range, would have enormously superior propagation characteristics when coupled with higher power limits than Wi-Fi's 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz deployments. With adaptive scanning required to avoid stepping on licensed users, the white spaces technology would likely be much more resilient than Wi-Fi, too, as well as having a larger span of channels on which to choose to operate.
The National Association of Broadcasters, representing owners of TV stations and networks, protested that regardless of how well designed devices were to avoid interfering with TV signals, it was inevitable that they would. Dolly Parton surprisingly entered the fray--nearly a la Wi-Fi patron Hedy Lamarr--on behalf of the wireless microphone industry, which has a licensed low-power use for theater and performance.
The FCC voted 5-0 to move forward. Manufacturers would still be going through tightly controlled FCC certification and testing for their devices, and one imagines the NAB will be watching very closely as well.
The FCC also voted 5-0 to approve a WiMax merger/spinoff that allows Sprint Nextel to reorganize its Xohm broadband operation into a new firm that would be merged with Clearwire's assets and be named Clearwire. The new operation already has billions lined up from Google, Intel, and cable operators to invest. The Justice Department already gave its general go-ahead, too.
This move sets the stage for a real battle among all broadband providers: it will force AT&T and Verizon to move quite aggressively to use the new 700 MHz bandwidth they acquired (and plan to deploy GSM-based LTE over, even though LTE is still officially in the lab, not in production); and for wireline provides like AT&T and Verizon, as well as Comcast, Cablevision, Qwest, and all the rest, to rethink pricing, speed, and services that Clearwire enters. If WiMax pans out as a viable third or even fourth pipe into the home, other broadband options in the same markets will be cheaper and faster.
Finally, in the least-interesting part of the news, the FCC voted to approve, with Dems partially dissenting--procedural thing, it appears--to allow Alltel to be acquired by Verizon to create the biggest U.S. cell carrier. Alltel was the largest of the smaller carriers, as it were, providing service in areas that the major carriers often overlooked. The Alltel acquisition is partially an infrastructure play that reduces Verizon's roaming costs while expanding its customer base.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:37 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Financial, Regulation, Spectrum, WiMAX | No Comments
The New York Times and BusinessWeek are bullish on the Sprint Xohm launch in Baltimore: Two veteran tech reporters, who have had time to see it all and be cynical about it all, are fairly positive about the Sprint launch of WiMax. This is the first city-wide launch in the U.S. for regular signups, and one of the largest networks now operating in the world. (As far as I can tell, Seoul's WiMax-compatible WiBro network is still not designed for 100-percent city coverage, but is boutique.)
Bob Tedeschi at the Times found solid performance wherever he tested, but he notes the caveat that the network is nearly empty at the moment. While comparing Sprint's promised up to 4 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up, he uses an outdated number for AT&T's 3G network. AT&T used to give out the numbers he states, but as of their HSUPA upgrade a few months ago, they claim 700 Kbps to 1.7 Mbps downstream and 500 Kbps to 1.2 Mbps upstream. I haven't had the opportunity to test these rates, but this is their current claim, not what Tedeschi reported.
Tedeschi checked out various adapters and devices, including the Nokia N810 WiMax Edition ($500) that just went on sale. He had problems with video playback, but that could have been the network or the phone's operating system or the site he was accessing. He did like the quality of VoIP calls.
BusinessWeek's Stephen Wildstrom was more enthusiastic, seeing rates of 3 Mbps down and 500 Kbps to 1 Mbps up, and was able to watch Hulu.com streaming content as a passenger in a moving vehicle.
Both reporters note that WiMax seems to improve on Wi-Fi and cell data service in both speed (as 3 Mbps is faster than most Wi-Fi hotspots, and much faster than the average of most 3G networks), availability (for Wi-Fi), and cost (for 3G).
Subscriptions are a little complicated: $30 for roaming, $35 for home, $45 for a combined plan, and $60 for multiple devices, if I have all that right. Subscribers also need to buy a dongle, card, adapter, or CPE (home bridge), which seem to run under $100. Adapters will eventually be built into Intel-designed laptops.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 2:36 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, WiMAX | No Comments
DSLReports has a tip that Sprint will launch its WiMax service in its first commercially available market on 6-Oct-2008: The site for the service should go live on 26-Sept, allowing sign ups. Pricing will likely be sub-$50. Speeds will likely be advertised as 2 to 4 Mbps with higher bursts. Long-time market watcher Karl Bode writes that backhaul issues appear to be sorted out, with Sprint having signed a number of new deals to ensure that their high-bandwidth WiMax sites can be fed with enough bites.
Baltimore is one of what I believe are still three test markets that will go into commercial availability, albeit as much as a year after initial plans, and then months delayed after revised plans were announced. Still 2 to 4 Mbps is far above the level that current cell technology can achieve as a consistent range.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 9:30 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: 4G, WiMAX | No Comments
Azulstar once pinned its fortunes on city-wide Wi-Fi, but now looks to a special licensed spectrum band to make WiMax work where Wi-Fi failed: Azulstar has been the also-ran in Wi-Fi for some years, I'll just state bluntly and upfront. They built a network in Grand Haven, Mich., in 2003 that's one of--if not the--longest running metro-scale Wi-Fi networks in the world designed for public access. The mayor of Grand Haven since 2003, Roger Bergman, told me, "I got on board personally right away, and I am still on."
Azulstar soon answered several RFPs and partnered up with major firms to bring Wi-Fi to Rio Rancho, N.M., Winston-Salem, N.C., Sacramento, Calif., and most notably Silicon Valley--a set of dozens of cities along with county government and private enterprise all wanting some kind of tiered Wi-Fi across 1,500 sq mi.
While EarthLink, MetroFi, and even Kite Networks (with their extensive Arizona buildout in Tempe launched a bit before any other large competiting network) seized the headlines, and later made news about their stalls, failures, and exits, Azulstar seemed quietly to sink into the sand. The Wireless Silicon Valley deal fell apart, as did Sacramento after efforts to get stakeholder and outside investment seemed to fail to materialize, and the marquee partners--Cisco, IBM, and Intel--just wouldn't step up to the plate to make the project move forward. Azulstar was the lead techology firm, but the money just didn't come. (Both California projects are moving forward with a different set of partners and expectations now.)
Rio Rancho was perhaps one of the biggest letdowns. City manager Jim Payne explained in an interview a few weeks ago, "They had a number of things that were going against them from the start, and they did make an attempt to meet the requirements of the contract." But Rio Rancho voted to not just terminate the contract after years of attempts to make the network work, but rejected a proposal from Azulstar a few weeks ago to switch over equipment on the poles. Azulstar now has to remove all its devices.
All of this might make the typical company head a bit depressed about his firm's future, and less than sanguine about the potential for wireless broadband to work at all. Not so for Tyler van Houwelingen, Azulstar's chief, and I have to admit that he convinced me that the wireless provider has a fighting chance, due to a good combination of timing, spectrum policy, and a large dollop of can-do spirit.
Read the rest of "Can Azulstar Make WiMax Work without Buying Spectrum?"
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 10:58 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Future, Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal, Unique, WiMAX | No Comments
Speculation is rampant around early glimpse of Macworld Expo banners: The banners (normally not seen until after the keynote) read "There's something in the air," which David Morgenstern speculates could refer to the inclusion of mobile WiMax (which he bucks the trend and calls WiMax Mobile, for some reason). I hesitate to stick my neck on the line, but I think it's unlikely Apple would push mobile WiMax at this point. But I've been wrong before.
Back in 2003, I said that Apple wouldn't introduce 802.11g products at the January Macworld Expo event because 802.11g wasn't yet well baked, and Apple wouldn't expose its customers to months of firmware updates and incompatibility issues with other Wi-Fi adapters and base stations. I was wrong! It took eight months of firmware fixes to get 802.11g just right, but we lived through.
In 2007, I thought it unlikely that despite the presence of what seemed like 802.11n chips in many Intel-based Macintoshes dissected by those interested in the innards that Apple would jump the gun on the standard which was still not clearly settled in its direction. Again, I was wrong: Apple pulled the trigger, and announced its 802.11n product and an activator for most Intel Core 2 Duo based Macs that had shipped to that point. A few days later, the IEEE group voted overwhelmingly to approve the draft of 802.11n that settled the issue as it moves to ratification.
Thus my track record is poor on Apple's wireless plans. Nonetheless, I think WiMax isn't in the cards. Rather, it's more likely for Apple to build in HSPA (high-speed packet access), the GSM evolution standard for 3G. I haven't seen this speculated elsewhere, so I may be totally off base, but here's my logic.
Mobile WiMax isn't yet deployed. With 802.11g and 802.11n, you could buy components from Apple and immediately use the higher speed for your own network. With Mobile WiMax, most Mac owners won't be able to access a network, for which they will have to subscribe or pay usage fees, until mid- to late 2008. People generally resent paying for technology they simply cannot use. Apple would also take a margin hit for including the internal adapter, which isn't in wide production yet.
In that light, HSPA is a more reasonable choice with its few hundred Kbps upstream and several hundred Kpbs downstream average performance. AT&T, its iPhone partner, already has HSPA networks deployed in the U.S.; it's determined to roll them out nationally, although its unclear what areas have the slower UMTS standard--faster than EDGE, slower than HSPA--and which have HSPA. (HSPA is often labled as HSDPA for the 3.6 Mbps or 7.2 Mbps raw "downlink" flavor and HSUPA for the 1.9 Mbps or 5.8 Mbps upstream flavors.)
The 3G iPhone will incorporate HSPA, and thus it would make sense for Apple to not be building in technology that's tied to a rival--Sprint Nextel--to its main and exclusive phone carrier partner.
What's more likely, however, is that the "in the air" has something to do with streaming media, a revised Apple TV, and new content than with a new network standard. But given my 0 for 2 record, you might want to take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 7:52 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Consumer Electronics, Future, WiMAX | No Comments | No TrackBacks
Clearwire and Sprint Nextel agreed to allow roaming on their underway mobile WiMax networks: It's a huge shot in the arm for mobile WiMax, as neither of the two firms have enough geographic licenses to allow allow full national coverage. Sprint Nextel planned to back up its WiMax network with its 3G EVDO coverage; Clearwire had no such plan, as it has no other spectrum or network holdings. The deal allows Clearwire to roam onto Sprint's 3G network, which is a boon for them. Both firms can avoid patchy networks now that would make business travelers and companies with national footprints less likely to sign up.
Now, the reason I pose the question as to whether municipal Wi-Fi networks could suffer as a result is that mobile WiMax is a superior technology to Wi-Fi for large-scale mobility and indoor coverage. Yes, this is a Wi-Fi-oriented site. Yes, I have spent much of the last six years writing largely about Wi-Fi. Yes, there are hundred of city-wide Wi-Fi networks in planning stages or being built.
And, true, mobile WiMax in a new, unproven technology with a lot of promise that has to demonstrate its effectiveness in the real world. Truly mobile adapters that fit in or are built into laptops, handhelds, and gadgets like cameras and gaming systems, have yet to come (although we should see laptop cards next year), and are critical for widescale adoption. (Intel has plans to embed Wi-Fi and mobile WiMax in a reference laptop design, of course.)
But there's no question that mobile WiMax is a fresh standard built for long-distance, mobile, outdoor use, and that doesn't use spectrum with tons of competing uses (Wi-Fi) or require support or interoperability with legacy technology (Wi-Fi, cell data). WiMax is the ideal technology for building city-wide wireless networks. It just has to prove itself, and the providers have to offer competitive pricing, too, when compared to those offered for metro-scale Wi-Fi networks, Wi-Fi hotspots, and cell data networks.
I've been saying for some time that Wi-Fi is a "best-worst" technology for metro-scale rollouts (it's the "best-best" for wireless LANs). It's the worst, because it's not designed to work in metro-scale environments, and accommodations for that involve decisions like having mesh nodes that blast the maximum allowable power out in every direction. Wi-Fi is well designed to cope with interference, but not in the complicated RF environments that already exist in every urban area in the developed world. It's a best effort technology, so that you can't guarantee results, because of interference, co-existence, and power limits.
Wi-Fi is the best, however, because it's here today, and well characterized. We know how Wi-Fi works. You can roll it out without licenses, it's flexible, and almost every laptop and an ever-increasing number of mobile devices sold today has a Wi-Fi adapter built in.
Municipalities considering today whether to write a request for proposals to encourage or authorize citywide Wi-Fi networks, especially with what appears to be a new requirement by service providers like MetroFi to sign up for multi-year contracts, may step back to think about WiMax. I've already been thinking that if you were starting today, the near-term availability of 802.11n and MIMO gear for metropolitan deployment--maybe 6 to 12 months away--should make you hesitate in finding a firm that's designing the network today.
Now you're saying, Glenn, Glenn, Glenn, WiMax will be controlled by two firms in this country, extending the oligopoly of the telecoms, wired and wireless, and that Wi-Fi can be deployed by anyone, at any time, whether a city, a non-profit, a neighborhood, or a large-scale service provider--or even a telecom. WiMax is totalitarian; Wi-Fi is socialist.
True. But there's a thin margin that Wi-Fi has over WiMax. Cost and availability of adapters will likely be an issue for as long as two years. Speed is another: Wi-Fi's boost into 802.11n should allow dramatically higher speeds, although large-scale networks need to figure out how to exploit this to their customer's advantage.
The final part of that margin is that Wi-Fi can be offered to cities for a fraction of the cost of cell data, like EVDO and HSDPA. Even with large-scale subscriptions, cities still pay close to $60 per month for cell data subscriptions per card or user, plus the initial cost of the adapter (from $0 to $100, typically). Wi-Fi-equipped laptops in a metro-scale network can hop on an office Wi-Fi network when a city worker is in the office, and then roam onto a secure city-wide network as needed. Because Wi-Fi works across all operating systems, there's no driver limitation as there is with specific support for 3G adapters.
If Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are smart--and Clearwire has already been bidding on city-wide networks--they'll be able to put together a package for municipalities that guts one of the primary financial legs for citywide Wi-Fi. In Seattle, with Clearwire's current proprietary, pre-WiMax gear, you can spend about $35 per month for 1.5 Mbps down and 256 Kbps. They provide a nomadic adapter; one of my colleagues carries the small AC-powered device with him so he can work from home or at his girlfriend's apartments.
With the right offer for municipalities, a city or town could avoid the whole issue about providing access, dealing with utility poles, coping with community groups and their privacy concerns, and waiting for the buildout. Instead, Sprint and Clearwire will just keep lighting up cities and knocking on their doors. (Oh, and Clearwire and Sprint already have voice integrated into their mobile WiMax plans, just by the way.)
EarthLink's reaction here will be critical. The new CEO said a few weeks ago that he'd have a decision in 30 to 60 days about the company's future direction. Some of us who follow the firm expect that the municipal network division could go into maintenance mode, continuing on active networks, and pulling out of undone proposals. This Clearwire/Sprint roaming decision could affect EarthLink's plans, by removing one of the potential underpinnings of their financial model.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 12:00 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Future, Municipal, WiMAX | 3 Comments | No TrackBacks
The WiMax developer and licensed spectrum holder NextWave will acquire metro-scale Wi-Fi gear maker Go Networks: Go's equipment uses MIMO to fill more space at lower cost, the company has said. NextWave, a successor firm to the 1990s cell operator and Supreme Court case victor over spectrum auctions, has a portfolio of WiMax hardware and a set of licenses they purchased in the recent advanced wireless services auction. NextWave also acquired some German WiMax licenses last month.
NextWave is obviously assembling a set of technologies that they can roll out in test markets that they have spectrum in, and will be well positioned to test the effectiveness of MIMO-based Wi-Fi as a complement and supplement to WiMax in urban areas.
The Go Networks' deal is valued at $13.3m with a separate assumption of $7.5m in debt. Go would also receive $25.7m in stock for meeting milestones 18 months after the deal closes.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 3:30 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Financial, MIMO, Metro-Scale Networks, WiMAX | No Comments | No TrackBacks
The folks at Network Computing have delivered a mammoth, superb overview of mobile wireless data: The article by Peter Rysavy--a wireless consultant that I had a great interview with last winter--and Jameson Blandford covers the history of wireless data; the current market of cell data and pricing, Wi-Fi mesh and municipal networks, and mobile WiMax; and looks at the long-term disruption that's to come. While the article is focused on how companies can manage their data needs and deal with costs associated with services, the technology and market explanations are universal. This is a must-read.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 1:27 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 2.5G and 3G, Metro-Scale Networks, WiMAX | No Comments | No TrackBacks
I keep seeing phrases like "WiMax is Wi-Fi on steroids." It's not. Here's why: The fundamental difference between WiMax and Wi-Fi is that WiMax is intended for licensed spectrum in which contention among providers with different interests is eliminated; Wi-Fi is designed for a hostile environment in which every party must accept interference within the legal limits without complaint.
WiMax works over long distances because the spectrum band rules in which it will be deployed for licensed service allow higher signal strength and have higher parameters in every area than the FCC Part 15 rules (and similar regulations internationally) that define Wi-Fi's use in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band. WiMax also benefits from the licenseholder coordinating among itself. Wi-Fi lives and dies by contention, a fear in municipal-scale networks.
Wi-Fi is a best efforts technology. Like an eager and precocious child in a raucous classroom full of other precocious children and noisy underachievers, Wi-Fi struggles to be heard while not stepping outside the rules. It often is heard, but its answers to some question are drowned out or need to be repeated. Sometimes, it takes a lot of effort to just spell serendipity because it has to say each letter loudly and slowly for the teacher--the access point--to hear what it's saying.
WiMax is a service level agreement (SLA) technology. WiMax is a private symposium with a talking stick in an elite, organized, and expensive university. In each classroom in the groves of academe, you find extremely well-turned-out students in bespoke clothing, none of whom dares speak without tacit permission of the profession. In fact, it's a bit more like watching staged readings of synchronized poetry than it is a discussion. There is no contention, and each professor rules each classroom as a captain rules his or her ship.
Before you get huffy out there and say, hey, there's going to be unlicensed WiMax, too, or, there's already unlicensed WiMax, think again. There is no unlicensed profile yet approved for WiMax. Any device that uses 5.8 GHz may be lovely, full of light and truth and the joy in exciting electrons into different states at high frequencies, but it isn't certified WiMax. Further, the word is that there may never be a certified profile for the unlicensed bands.
The 5 GHz band gets a real workout, especially 5.8 GHz with its special point-to-point rules for higher signal gain, in metro-scale Wi-Fi networks because it's the only affordable way to backhaul data, and by using highly directional signals, they can bypass quite a bit of the interference issues in that band. At least for now.
Now, I have been pigeonholed as pro-Wi-Fi because I run this blog with the title Wi-Fi in it. I also run a WiMax blog and have for years (originally with help from a colleague). My allegiance is to the consumer rather than the technology, and to the application rather than the physical medium over which applications run. I am not afraid to say that Wi-Fi is often the best-worst technology for a given situation. I could also say that Wi-Fi technology is fundamentally a mid-90s approach to wireless networking wrapped in modern encodings for speed. (Even 802.11n suffers from this.) WiMax is a 21st century technology that has roots in the past, but fewer of the past's limitations.
With more WiMax in the mix in the US, as now is inevitable (whether it's financially advantageous to the firms involve), we will see a lot more tradeoffs between Wi-Fi and WiMax. Wi-Fi's key advantages today are that it works, it's deployed, it's cheap, and it's in practically every laptop. Fixed and mobile WiMax will have some of those advantages within one year.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 10:47 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Spectrum, WiMAX | 7 Comments | No TrackBacks
Intel's $600m investment in Clearwire had an impact? Sprint picks their next-generation network technology: Mobile WiMax. They'll use this to reach 85 percent of the U.S.'s top 200 markets by 2008 using their 2.5 GHz licenses. While they have deployed EVDO extensively with plans to upgrade it in the 4th quarter to a faster version, they've also made it clear they were looking for more ways to deliver more data than their cell spectrum holdings allowed.
Read my full analysis on our WiMax Networking News site.
The Wall Street Journal reported last night that they've decided on WiMax (confirmed in their news conference on Tuesday), which allows both fixed and mobile deployments in its newer flavor. Building a national network would cost $1b to $4b, the Journal reports. A Sprint VP told the Journal that the firm wants to be a conduit for media, and only this kind of network--not the current roadmap for 3G cellular--can deliver the bandwidth.
Qualcomm is left out of the dance on this one. They offered their subsidiary Flarion's technology to Sprint. The Journal says that, according to analysts, Sprint didn't want to be stuck with a single vendor that controlled the technology. WiMax is already too big to be controlled by any one firm, although Intel has set much of the mobility direction through heavy investments.
Sprint could even buy equipment from Motorola, which then starts to make sense about how Clearwire spun off their adapter and hardware division in exchange for cash and investments. Motorola can be a vendor to Sprint without Sprint feeling like they're directly funding their competition, and without Clearwire holding back key technology or driving it in directions Sprint is uninterested in. Update: Motorola was part of the announcement; they will be a partner in some fashion.
Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 10:56 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: 2.5G and 3G, WiMAX | No Comments | No TrackBacks