Email Delivery

Receive new posts as email.

Email address

Syndicate this site

RSS | Atom

Contact

About This Site
Contact Us
Privacy Policy

Search


November 2010
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        

Stories by Category

Basics :: Basics
Casting :: Casting Listen In Podcasts Videocasts
Culture :: Culture Hacking
Deals :: Deals
FAQ :: FAQ
Future :: Future
Hardware :: Hardware Adapters Appliances Chips Consumer Electronics Gaming Home Entertainment Music Photography Video Gadgets Mesh Monitoring and Testing PDAs Phones Smartphones
Industry :: Industry Conferences Financial Free Health Legal Research Vendor analysis
International :: International
Media :: Media Locally cached Streaming
Metro-Scale Networks :: Metro-Scale Networks Community Networking Municipal
Network Types :: Network Types Broadband Wireless Cellular 2.5G and 3G 4G Power Line Satellite
News :: News Mainstream Media
Politics :: Politics Regulation Sock Puppets
Schedules :: Schedules
Security :: Security 802.1X
Site Specific :: Site Specific Administrative Detail April Fool's Blogging Book review Cluelessness Guest Commentary History Humor Self-Promotion Unique Wee-Fi Who's Hot Today?
Software :: Software Open Source
Spectrum :: Spectrum 60 GHz
Standards :: Standards 802.11a 802.11ac 802.11ad 802.11e 802.11g 802.11n 802.20 Bluetooth MIMO UWB WiGig WiMAX ZigBee
Transportation and Lodging :: Transportation and Lodging Air Travel Aquatic Commuting Hotels Rails
Unclassified :: Unclassified
Vertical Markets :: Vertical Markets Academia Enterprise WLAN Switches Home Hot Spot Aggregators Hot Spot Advertising Road Warrior Roaming Libraries Location Medical Public Safety Residential Rural SOHO Small-Medium Sized Business Universities Utilities wISP
Voice :: Voice

Archives

November 2010 | October 2010 | September 2010 | August 2010 | July 2010 | June 2010 | May 2010 | April 2010 | March 2010 | February 2010 | January 2010 | December 2009 | November 2009 | October 2009 | September 2009 | August 2009 | July 2009 | June 2009 | May 2009 | April 2009 | March 2009 | February 2009 | January 2009 | December 2008 | November 2008 | October 2008 | September 2008 | August 2008 | July 2008 | June 2008 | May 2008 | April 2008 | March 2008 | February 2008 | January 2008 | December 2007 | November 2007 | October 2007 | September 2007 | August 2007 | July 2007 | June 2007 | May 2007 | April 2007 | March 2007 | February 2007 | January 2007 | December 2006 | November 2006 | October 2006 | September 2006 | August 2006 | July 2006 | June 2006 | May 2006 | April 2006 | March 2006 | February 2006 | January 2006 | December 2005 | November 2005 | October 2005 | September 2005 | August 2005 | July 2005 | June 2005 | May 2005 | April 2005 | March 2005 | February 2005 | January 2005 | December 2004 | November 2004 | October 2004 | September 2004 | August 2004 | July 2004 | June 2004 | May 2004 | April 2004 | March 2004 | February 2004 | January 2004 | December 2003 | November 2003 | October 2003 | September 2003 | August 2003 | July 2003 | June 2003 | May 2003 | April 2003 | March 2003 | February 2003 | January 2003 | December 2002 | November 2002 | October 2002 | September 2002 | August 2002 | July 2002 | June 2002 | May 2002 | April 2002 | March 2002 | February 2002 | January 2002 | December 2001 | November 2001 | October 2001 | September 2001 | August 2001 | July 2001 | June 2001 | May 2001 | April 2001 |

Recent Entries

In-Flight Wi-Fi and In-Flight Bombs
Can WPA Protect against Firesheep on Same Network?
Southwest Sets In-Flight Wi-Fi at $5
Eye-Fi Adds a View for Web Access
Firesheep Makes Sidejacking Easy
Wi-Fi Direct Certification Starts
Decaf on the Starbucks Digital Network
Google Did Snag Passwords
WiMax and LTE Not Technically 4G by ITU Standards
AT&T Wi-Fi Connections Keep High Growth with Free Service

Site Philosophy

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. Part of the FM Tech advertising network.

Copyright

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

« Airports and Tenants Contend over Spectrum Rights | Main | Farmers Grow Backsides with Wi-Fi »

June 18, 2004

Alvarion Says Pre-WiMax Means WiMax Commitment

alvarion logoAlvarion VP says that the company's new platform is ready for WiMax, backed by their promise to upgrade it: A few weeks ago, I wrote about Alvarion's BreezeMax platform and took the company to task for not spelling out precisely what they were promising customers when saying that BreezeMax was their WiMax platform. WiMax hasn't reached a final certification stage yet for equipment that complies to IEEE 802.16a: broadband wireless point-to-point service in the 2 GHz to 11 GHz range for licensed and unlicensed bands. That certification standard might not be ready until 2005; likewise, chips designed for it could be that far ahead, too.

I wrote in May that Alvarion should have said We're not selling WiMax equipment, but something we believe we be so close to it that only firmware upgrades are required. I also wrote, Interestingly, while they say futureproofed on one page, they don't mention whether purchasers would receive free hardware upgrades if the WiMax standard as deployed is too different to allow firmware changes to this equipment.

Alvarion wanted to clarify what they meant, and I spoke today with Carlton O'Neal, the vice president of marketing for the company. I asked O'Neal if Alvarion is guaranteeing its customers--as a few other firms have apparently done in a limited way--that BreezeMax would be a WiMax upgrade when the final standard was available. He said it would. (Note: An earlier version of this story said it was zero-cost. That is incorrect. Alvarion later clarified that customers would pay a negotiated fee when the WiMax upgrade was available. Cost will depend on the extent of the software or hardware upgrades.)

O'Neal said that the company had built the platform to allow software upgrades, firmware upgrades, and hardware upgrades. They believe that with the current state of the WiMax standard they can entirely rely on software and firmware to handle full WiMax certification: "Our hope, our plan, is that it's software and firmware," he said. Their last resort would be hardware, but "we're prepared to do that."

Alvarion has been developing the BreezeMax system for three years, and decided that given the state of WiMax and their own readiness, they needed to bring the carrier-grade equipment into the marketplace with a commitment to make this their flagship WiMax platform even though the standard is still under development. What they deploy today works, and some of their customers may choose to stick with it far past when interoperable WiMax hardware and their own upgrades are available.

Alvarion will eventually rely on chips built by Intel to power their WiMax gear, and Intel's circuits aren't due until 2005 at this point. But Alvarion is confident that they've made the right choice in hitting the market. "Right now, this box is good enough to be WiMax for everything we know, and the closure path from everything we know to certification is small," O'Neal said.

O'Neal said that as a public company, Alvarion has to pick its promises and its wording carefully, and he has resisted efforts by his staff to put prefixes and suffixes on the term WiMax because he said the company doesn't want to maintain that their equipment is something it's not. They eventually decided on calling it "pre-WiMax" because of their knowledge of the standard and their commitment in upgrading to a WiMax-certified system.

O'Neal said that at least a couple of Alvarion competitors, which he declined to name, had declared that their existing equipment was WiMax "like" or WiMax "ready" when it lacks some of the basic commonalities with the 802.16 and in-progress WiMax certification standards.

Thus, O'Neal said, Alvarion is only moving forward with its new platform as a WiMax-based product. "We will not play liar's poker" in terms of attaching a standards name to products that aren't close to it or won't be upgraded to meet the eventual certification.

In the past, I've criticized firms that are using the term WiMax to refer to equipment that simply provides point-to-point broadband wireless from a central location to a customer receiver. Just like Wi-Fi isn't just anything, but it's a rigidly defined and tested process for interoperable 2.4 and 5 GHz Part 15 data networking gear, so, too, is WiMax not a generic term but a way to create a pool of devices that compete on performance and specs, not on incompatible standards.

More clarification from companies like Alvarion that are promising a WiMax migration with the purchase of existing product lines for fully interoperable and compliant equipment should remove the ability of firms to capitalize on the name but not deliver the goods. Along those lines, it's surprising that the nascent WiMax Forum isn't fighting harder against dilution of their trademark.