 | Issue: | Global-ICT 2005 |
| Article no.: | 15 | |
| Topic: | WiMAX – broadband everywhere | |
| Author: | Tzvika Friedman | |
| Title: | CEO | |
| Organisation: | Alvarion | |
| PDF size: | 316KB |
About author
Tzvika Friedman is the CEO of Alvarion. He had served earlier as the company’s President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr Friedman served previously as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Next Generation Telephony and DCME division at ECI Telecom, as well as Vice President of Marketing and Sales of ECI Telecom’s SDH division. Tzvika Friedman holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering (MScEE) from Tel-Aviv University and a Sloan Program Master’s degree in Management (MScM) from the London Business School.
Article abstract
There has been much talk about WiMAX. By standardising an existing, proven, broadband wireless access (BWA) niche technology and certifying the interoperability of equipment, WiMAX has turned BWA into a mass-market product. This provides both operators and end-users with reliable low cost products and opens the way for the widespread adoption of BWA. The first certified products are not yet available, but ‘pre-WiMAX’ and ‘WiMAX ready’ equipment is already being installed by operators that urgently need to deploy broadband.
Full Article
The noise surrounding WiMAX has been quite deafening these past few months, even for those directly involved who have a passionate belief in the technology and its ability to provide ubiquitous high-quality voice and data services. Of course, fingers will always be pointed at oft-repeated vendors’ statements such as the one from Sean Mahoney of Intel, who described WiMAX as ‘more important than the Internet itself’. Still, many others must share some of the blame for the inflated declarations the hype machine circulates. Many industry commentators simply fail to grasp that WiMAX is not, in fact, a new technology, but rather an evolution in broadband access that has been more than ten years in the making. Many have focused on ‘this great new technology, which will replace all other access methods’. Of course, that kind of talk has been met with typical cynicism and a ‘so what?’ from those who have no problem getting broadband lines. Indeed, many people have a choice of several DSL or cable providers for their broadband services. What of those, though, who live and work in areas where no telecoms network exists, or where the infrastructure is old or saturated? For many operators, building, upgrading or replacing a wired network does not make economic sense, especially if it will be of service to only 10 to 20 per cent of the customer base. In rural areas with low-density populations, investing in new infrastructure simply does not fit most operators’ business cases. WiMAX For the record, proprietary broadband wireless access, or BWA, networks have now been deployed in over 130 countries. They provide voice and high-speed data services in rural and urban areas for applications such as building-to-building connectivity and last-mile access. So it is safe to say that BWA is a proven, successful, albeit niche, technology. The standardization resulting from WiMAX will deliver BWA, but with all the economic benefits of a mass-market product, and with reduced equipment costs for both operators and end-users. With WiMAX, service providers will be able to buy gear from more than one company and be confident about the interoperability of all WiMAX certified equipment. The standard behind fixed WiMAX is the IEEE 802.16-2004 (formerly 802.16d) specification. The WiMAX Forum expects the first certified products will be commercially available by the end of this year. Right now, a couple of terms are commonly used to describe currently available products: – Pre-WiMAX usually refers to proprietary BWA products that use OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) technology systems, which is similar to that used in WiMAX, enabling operation in non-line-of-sight conditions; – WiMAX-ready is the phrase the WiMAX Forum uses to signify base stations and CPEs (customer premises equipment) that are software-upgradeable to the standard upon WiMAX Forum Certification. More than 100 operators have decided not to wait for certification to be completed and have begun to roll out networks using WiMAX-ready equipment. They range from incumbents looking to fill holes in their broadband coverage, to new entrants and CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers) that can now, using WiMAX, devise viable business cases to compete for residential and business customers. The ambitious French alternative operator, Altitude, has aspirations to become one of the market’s leading carriers and is building a nationwide network using WiMAX-ready equipment to offer voice and data services to both homes and businesses. With potential customers crying out for broadband, and not being catered to by other operators, Altitude could not and did not want to wait for certified products. Jean-Paul Riviere, Altitude’s chairman and CEO, says, ‘WiMAX is essential to our future success and has provided us with a strong and profitable business model. It provides operators like us with the flexibility to serve a variety of business and residential customers, cost-effectively and profitably’. Arobase Telecom is the Ivory Coast’s second national operator. It uses a fibre network to provide telecoms services throughout the country, but last month ordered WiMAX-ready equipment to deliver broadband data and voice services to corporate and SME customers in the nation’s capital city of Abidjan. The carrier’s CEO, Gervais Assie Amani, says that ‘we have found that wireless broadband is a very cost effective complement to our fibre network. The business community in Abidjan, a city of approximately 5 million inhabitants, is hungry for broadband. ‘WiMAX enables us to quickly build a network to offer services to our subscribers and we have received very positive feedback from our subscribers regarding the quality and reliability of the Internet connection.’ Attention is now turning to the mobile version of WiMAX based on the IEEE 802.16e standard. With ratification expected at year-end, demonstrations of mobile WiMAX products will begin in early-2006. The technology enables a much bigger market as it will serve urban users in the major cities of the world. Most observers and pundits agree that the business model for portable and mobile WiMAX is extremely compelling, providing multi-megabit network access for users on the move. Few will argue with the potential for having the same high-speed IP-quality services we have in our offices while on the move. Mobile WiMAX promises to do for broadband what cellular did for phones: change it to something you have with you wherever you might be. Eventually laptops, notebooks, PDAs and other mobile devices will be equipped in the factory with WiMAX chips, just as they are now with Wi-Fi chips. There is no doubt that WiMAX has moved into the mainstream of broadband alongside DSL, cable and mobile phones.
