WiMax take up could eclipse Wi-Fi

Grok Headline matches for WiMax take up could eclipse Wi-Fi

Alvarion Says Pre-WiMax Means WiMax
Commitment

Alvarion Says Pre-WiMax Means WiMax
Commitment 06/18/2004 03:58 PM
Alvarion 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 zero-cost WiMax upgrade when the final standard was available. He said it would. 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...

WiMax: Where and When

WiMax: Where and When 07/12/2004 05:22 PM
Parks Associates senior analyst Michael Cai's recent report on fixed broadband wireless technology may offer a more realistic view of the future than that painted by some vendors: He studied developed and developing countries around the globe and while he found that each region is on a slightly different path, he doesn't expect to see volume commercial deployments of WiMax until 2006. Those deployments will be mainly in Europe and Asia. That timeframe is slightly behind the second half of 2005 timeframe that the WiMax Forum and some vendors are hoping for. While the standardization process is on schedule, the processes for certification and interoperability are likely to slow down progress. "Who knows where conflicts emerge as they go down the process," Cai said. Even if commercial products come out in the second half of 2005 on schedule, carriers will likely want to test products for three to six months before rolling out a commercial network, he said. Cai doesn't expect large scale demand for WiMax networks in the United States until 2008 or 2009, though he cautions that there are so many uncertainties here that it's difficult to predict. The deployment of WiMax here may depend on changes the FCC may make to its spectrum policy for the 2.5 Ghz bands. But in the meantime, Cai expects existing wireless ISPs to migrate to WiMax using the unlicensed bands. "All they care about is cost," he said. Such operators don't have the resources to test equipment or support trials so they're interested in standards-based products that essentially guarantee good performance. Cai also has some interesting theories on which areas of the world will have the most WiMax users in the near future. While many observers suggest that the developing nations that don't yet have strong telecom infrastructure will make up the largest markets for WiMax, Cai says that developed markets will at least initially account for the highest number of subscribers. "Even if [WiMax reaches] 20 percent of the underserved market in the U.S., that's way larger than the total market in a lot of developing markets," he said. He believes that over the next few years, most of the developing countries will continue to lack demand, lack PC penetration, and lack the disposable income to support WiMax. "At least until 2009, we'll probably have more WiMax subscribers in the underserved markets in the developed countries compared to emerging markets...

Pre-WiMax at 100 mph

Pre-WiMax at 100 mph 04/13/2005 08:12 PM
The Brighton Express uses pre-WiMax gear to achieve 60 miles of coverage at 100 mph: Peter Judge reports from the London-to-Brighton line that although coverage is yet contiguous--that's still to come--the service offers seamless performance across each base station zone by relying Wi-Fi in the carriages to WiMax base stations along the route. T-Mobile is involved in this unwiring--which was carried out by Nomad Digital--and is offering the service at no charge while they tune the system. The estimate is that the 37 802.11d-based Redline devices will need to be increased to 60, or a density of about one per mile, to provide complete coverage. The limit on speed right now is the ADSL backhaul of 2 Mbps per base station. The service switches to GPRS when out of range of WiMax bonding three GPRS devices. Only one train out of 15 is equipped so far. T-Mobile will charge £5 per hour or £13 per day for service starting in June....

WiMax

WiMax 04/18/2005 07:55 AM

Wireless Internet access about to go extra 5 miles: We had WiMax-like service here in Sioux Falls as a test market for Monet Mobile. You could surf the Web from a laptop in the back seat of your car driving down the interstate.

Sadly, it looks like Monet was a bit ahead of their time. If they had only made it one more year, they'd have hit the coming WiMax craze.

WiMax is essentially high-powered Wi-Fi, the kind of wireless Internet now common in coffee shops. Wi-Fi's range is much shorter, usually enough to cover only one or two buildings.

[...] Intel is working on a future chip that will go into laptops allowing them to hop onto a WiMax network anywhere there's a signal. WiMax may also incorporate Internet phone-calling technology, turning it into a land-line and cellular-like phone service.

And here's a benefit we've talked about before: less stuff.

[...] there's a good chance WiMax will be a hit, especially because it saves carriers the trouble of laying cable.

A tsunami can't break a WiMax connection, provide the sending and receiving points are intact, right?

Intel Has Its Eye on WiMax. But Why?

Intel Has Its Eye on WiMax. But Why? 07/13/2004 05:18 PM
eWeek Jul 13 2004 9:30PM GMT

WiMAX, 3G Could Collide

WiMAX, 3G Could Collide 03/22/2005 07:29 PM
Extreme Tech Mar 22 2005 9:03PM GMT

WiMax: Coming your way soon?

WiMax: Coming your way soon? 08/17/2004 10:55 PM

WiMax Gets Real

WiMax Gets Real 06/21/2004 12:05 PM
Intel, Proxim development plans aid protocol's credibility.

Intel's WiMax on way

Intel's WiMax on way 09/08/2004 10:27 AM
Deccan Herald Sep 8 2004 1:41PM GMT

Sprint to Get Behind WiMax

Sprint to Get Behind WiMax 02/06/2005 01:11 AM
Technocrat.net Feb 6 2005 2:25AM GMT

WiMax From WalMart?

WiMax From WalMart? 08/10/2004 03:53 AM
Over at the Institute for the Future, they're wondering if WalMart might end up getting into the broadband business by hooking up WiMax base stations (once such equipment is actually available) on all their stores, covering much of the US in broadband. It's an interesting theory, and gets the attention of those who think that telecoms are a dying breed. Of course, it's really not that easy. Over at TheFeature, I've written up a longer piece looking at some of the challenges a company like WalMart might face in offering broadband services. However, it's certainly not impossible to count them out. After all, who thought Starbucks would be in the internet access business in the first place? If you take that to a larger scale, perhaps Walmart could get into the WiMax business as well. A more interesting question, however, may be how the world is going to look when there are plenty of "virtual" network operators, where one company offers up their brand for others to put on a network. Virgin has built up quite a set of businesses doing this, and in the mobile space, MVNOs are a hot topic. However, could companies do this for just about any kind of telecom/broadband offering... and more to the point, is there a real benefit in doing so? It's cool for a big brand name company to think they can suddenly get into a technology services business just by licensing out their brand name, but won't there be some risks (a la AT&T' s annoyance with AT&T Wireless' trampling of the brand) and some questions about just why you want to buy your internet service from Coca-Cola?

LG looks at WiMax--and U.S. culture

LG looks at WiMax--and U.S. culture 03/14/2005 04:30 PM
Korean company teams with Nortel on emerging wireless standard, and opens a research center to study American culture.

Then There's UWB, WiMax, wOzNet

Then There's UWB, WiMax, wOzNet 02/19/2004 08:41 AM
Business Week Feb 19 2004 1:27PM GMT

Report: WiMax won't take off soon

Report: WiMax won't take off soon 07/09/2004 03:04 PM
Much-hyped broadband wireless technology won't break big for another five years, analysts say.

4g To Be Combination Of 3g And Wimax

4g To Be Combination Of 3g And Wimax 06/14/2004 06:00 PM
ewirelessnews Jun 14 2004 9:50PM GMT

WiMax in the wings

WiMax in the wings 06/25/2004 07:06 PM
CNET Jun 25 2004 11:41PM GMT

TI Doubts WiMax

TI Doubts WiMax 09/21/2004 06:29 PM
TI, which is not heavily into WiMax like its competitor Intel, says WiMax won't be very effective at bringing broadband to the home: It's true that it's far from certain that WiMax will be anywhere near the success that Intel promises, but most of the reasons TI gives here are pretty weak. Because China hasn't jumped on the bandwagon and because broadband wireless standards have failed in the past doesn't prove that WiMax will fail. If WiMax products have a lower price tag and are more robust than previous attempts at broadband wireless, the technology has a chance of success. WiMax can be far easier to deploy than most wireline technologies and appears to offer a good alternative to wireline especially in developing regions of the world. But there are plenty of reasons that WiMax could fail, which aren't mentioned by the TI executive. In the United States only a few spectrum holders own the licenses that would be ideal for a WiMax deployment and it's not clear that they're interested in the technology. One of those companies, Nextel, has expressed interest in using other proprietary technologies in the spectrum. Other large operators that don't own such prime spectrum are unlikely to want to execute a major deployment in unlicensed frequencies. The TI executive suggests that a portable or mobile version of WiMax might have a better chance of success. While future iterations of WiMax may sound more promising than the initial fixed version, it's very difficult to know today what the market will look like by the time a mobile or portable solution becomes available. By then, other technologies may have leapfrogged WiMax. It's also not clear that WiMax will indeed result in low-cost equipment for operators. Some wireless ISPs have said that vendors they've spoken to have said that the first couple generations of their base stations won't be interoperable with clients from any vendor. That lack of interoperability may not be very attractive for many operators and may prohibit prices from dropping. Ultimately, there are plenty of forces working against WiMax but much of what the TI executive says here sounds to me like sour grapes....

Will WiMax Replace DSL?

Will WiMax Replace DSL? 09/21/2004 09:08 PM
Techzonez Sep 22 2004 1:06AM GMT

Georgia County May be First for WiMax

Georgia County May be First for WiMax 12/02/2003 04:55 PM
Intel is working with city leaders in Houston County, Georgia to discuss building what could be the first WiMax network in the country: Intel has a close relationship with Houston County High School because it has given the school a $30,000 wireless technology lab. The idea for the WiMax network hatched from that relationship. The plan is very much on the drawing board though, with no one yet volunteering to fund the network, which should cost around $2 million to build, including towers....

France to Get Nationwide WiMax

France to Get Nationwide WiMax 09/23/2004 03:18 PM
Altitude Telecom, the only owner of a nationwide 3.5 Ghz license in France, plans to use Alvarion gear to build a broadband wireless network in the country: The Alvarion gear is based on WiMax, though not yet certified as WiMax because the certification process hasn't started yet. Altitude will start out with four counties and move on from there. It's interesting to note that Altitude plans to use the wireless network to serve small to large businesses. That target market is the same market that broadband wireless operators have traditionally targeted. WiMax, however, has often been touted as a DSL replacement that could be used to serve the residential market. Perhaps Altitude will use the next generation of WiMax gear to target the residential market....

Wimax To Be Hampered By 3g And Wi-fi
Interference

Wimax To Be Hampered By 3g And Wi-fi
Interference 06/28/2004 05:01 AM
ewirelessnews Jun 28 2004 9:02AM GMT

Economist Tackles WiMax

Economist Tackles WiMax 02/01/2005 09:13 PM
And I mean tackles! Pins it to the mat: This article lays out the land in a way that I appreciate: WiMax is an incremental enabling technology not a radical shift in view. No WiMax equipment has been sold yet. None will be sold for at least six months. When it does--and pre-WiMax turns into true WiMax--customer premises equipment will still be pretty steep compared to commodity devices available today. I had a long talk with SkyPilot the other day, which uses 802.11a-like technology to offer fairly good broadband speeds across long distances. Their tech is totally commoditized. Their CPE cost is $349--for a single unit. It goes down quite a lot (they wouldn't say how much) in quantity. They're about to announce some big customers for their production gear. WiMax isn't about whether broadband wireless is a viable service to offer. It certainly is. There's no question about that. It's whether a particular instanciation of that technology has any bearing on the deployment unless is has particular advantages that make something possible that wasn't. (That's part of the issue with early MIMO gear for the home, too.) As I read this Economist article, the real issue isn't whether a company like Qwest would choose SkyPilot's 802.11 over Alvarion's pre- or post-certified WiMax. Rather it's whether "plenty good enough today for real deployment" trumps "much better but much more expensive in the future until we deploy a lot of it." WiMax has a huge array of benefits for carriers that want to roll out WiMax in the same way they deployed DSL: few truckrolls (because of good non line of sight protocols) and lots of ratcheting in bandwidth offered to provide discrete services that mimic DSL and cable modems. These benefits are more appealing to carriers that are trying to integrate broadband wireless into an existing portfolio. These carriers are also in a better position to bundle applications on top of WiMax thus making it more reasonable for them to eat or subsidize a $500 CPE cost than even a large regional ISP or municipality. WiMax might be the flavor that telcos and related firms opt for because of consistency, standardization, and technical features. But it doesn't mean that potentially billions of dollars of other gear might not be sold in the meantime that has a very similar function and utility for the non-operator market. The article also walks...

Argentina scores with WiMax

Argentina scores with WiMax 07/13/2004 02:02 PM
ZDNet UK Jul 13 2004 5:54PM GMT

Intel's Push on WiMAX

Intel's Push on WiMAX 09/16/2004 03:18 PM
Intel's been lobbying for unlicensed broadband all year and dedicated the August edition of its Technology Journal to WiMAX. The flood of WiMAX announcements at the Intel Developer Forum should have come as no surprise.

Intel eager for WiMax

Intel eager for WiMax 03/24/2005 08:34 PM
Blog: Intel is pushing hard to get its WiMax ambitions off the ground. The chip giant recently strung up wireless broadband...

The first few WiMax pilots in India

The first few WiMax pilots in India 09/25/2004 04:08 AM
Express Computer India Sep 25 2004 8:44AM GMT

WiMAX Forum Grows

WiMAX Forum Grows 01/16/2004 11:01 AM
The WiMAX Forum added 39 new members, including AT&T and Covad: The addition of major operators is significant as few operators had joined the group. The din around WiMAX is steadily growing as we approach the Wireless Communications Association's annual conference where the WiMAX Forum has tacked on a day dedicated to WiMAX....

Nokia Exits WiMAX—for Now

Nokia Exits WiMAX—for Now 05/13/2004 11:01 AM
Nokia, a founding member of the WiMAX Forum for a global broadband wireless access standard, is not renewing its membership in the group it once enthusiastically endorsed.

WiMAX hype peaks

WiMAX hype peaks 03/24/2005 08:28 AM
Now it's time to deliver the technology, warns analyst

WiMAX trials speed up

WiMAX trials speed up 12/09/2003 05:05 AM
First mobile tests plus a wireless county

Earthlink Offering Not WiMax

Earthlink Offering Not WiMax 05/19/2004 06:12 AM
Earthlink is no stranger to experimenting with alternative forms of broadband. Last year they started experimenting with letting their customers connect wirelessly over a 1xRTT network (the data network Sprint and most of Verizon Wireless offer for dataspeeds that usually are slightly better than dialup). Earlier this year they started trials with broadband over powerlines, and now they're announcing that they're going to offer wireless broadband in a few northern California cities - offering speeds from 384 kilobits per second or up to 1 megabit per second with pricing between $21.95 a month or $29.95 a month. Seems like a pretty good deal, though, depending on the specific technology, wireless broadband has had a spotty history so far. Of course, the reporter on the article claims that this is WiMax - which is impossible, since WiMax doesn't actually exist yet (it's amazing how confused the press is about WiMax). In this case, the reporter mistakenly believes that all wireless broadband is "WiMax" and it's not a specific standard that still hasn't been approved. Either way, it should be interesting to see how far these trials go, as most major broadband providers haven't done much publicly concerning wireless broadband offerings.

AT&T Tests WiMax Gear

AT&T Tests WiMax Gear 03/22/2005 09:36 PM
Internet News Mar 23 2005 1:30AM GMT

WiMAX Shouldn't Ignore Businesses

WiMAX Shouldn't Ignore Businesses 12/02/2003 02:32 PM
A study from ABI Research urges service providers that plan to use WiMAX not to ignore small and medium size businesses: While the firm concludes that by 2008, 42 percent of subscribers will be residential, another 16 percent will be small or medium businesses. Those businesses tend to churn less than consumers and will likely spend more on their connections so operators would be wise to target them. ABI expects that combined revenues for 802.16 and 802.20 should pass $1.5 billion by 2008....

WiMax Has Hard Job Ahead

WiMax Has Hard Job Ahead 11/03/2003 11:13 AM
The WiMax Forum is supposed to help settle on an approach that implement the IEEE 802.16a point-to-point wireless spec: But the sheer range and nature of the protocol might result in several incompatible approaches. Intel's involvement might focus efforts in one direction. The article's side note that the 802.11g pre-ratification rush in the Wi-Fi space means even the Wi-Fi Alliance has found it difficult to maintain the original promise of interoperability is unfounded. I was dubious about the early 802.11g gear, too, but the rush was towards a single standard, not towards several. Ultimately, the IEEE approved 802.11g in summer and the Wi-Fi Alliance certified gear shortly thereafter....

WiMax, el futuro inalámbrico

WiMax, el futuro inalámbrico 09/02/2004 05:50 AM

4G to combine WiMax and 3G, says
Forrester

4G to combine WiMax and 3G, says
Forrester 06/11/2004 08:11 AM
vnunet.com Jun 11 2004 11:32AM GMT

Stop Using WiMax as a Verb

Stop Using WiMax as a Verb 06/03/2004 04:47 PM
Parks Associates presents a clear chart of WiMax, 802.16, and cell flavors that explain their nature and timetable: Anyone writing about or planning to deploy fixed and mobile wireless data services needs to take a gander at Parks Associates's layout of what WiMax will incorporate and when, including a break-out into the individual standards. "Using the term WiMAX in a homogeneous fashion has created a lot of hype and confusion in the industry," said one of Parks's senior analysts. Bravo and thank you. [link via Om Malik]...

Report: Is WiMax on course for success?

Report: Is WiMax on course for success? 04/14/2005 03:19 PM
vnunet.com Apr 14 2005 6:15PM GMT

SDE for Eclipse 1.1 b

SDE for Eclipse 1.1 b 04/26/2004 02:13 AM
A UML plugin for the Eclipse IDE.
Grok Description matches for WiMax take up could eclipse Wi-Fi
GrokA matches for WiMax take up could eclipse Wi-Fi

WiMax take up could eclipse Wi-Fi

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