Report from the WCA International Symposium

By Alan J Weissberger

The 12th WCA International Symposium was chock full of keen insights into the current state and future direction of broadband wireless access (BWA) - both fixed and mobile varieties. This report from Alan Weissberger highlights several relevant WiMAX take aways.

- Intel Capital is investing heavily in wireless broadband, especially in developing countries. They say that IEEE 802.16 standardization will be crucial to WiMAX adoption, as regulators have acknowledged the role and relevance of standards based technologies. Hence, they take a more favorable view of commercial deployment.

- Several carriers have and continue to deploy pre-standard (IEEE 802.16d-2004) fixed WiMAX technologies to deliver high speed Internet access and VoIP. These services are primarily for residential and small business customers.

- It seems that BWA carriers have little incentive to switch to standardized fixed WiMAX, which may have missed its market window. Even WiMAX Forum certification, while important, will not likely create a mass market for fixed WiMAX (IEEE 802.16-2004).

- Tower Stream has deployed pre-WiMAX fixed technology in six large US cities and offers enterprise customers cost effective T1 replacement. 80% of their customers use the service as their primary communications pipe; others use it for disaster recovery or load balancing.

- AT&T has trialed the pre-WiMAX fixed technology and is considering deploying it to enterprise customers as unchannelized T1s. Applications include: fast Internet access, VPN with SLA guarantees, and VoIP. They also have a commercial trial uderway in Alaska.

- Most pre WiMAX deployments (outside the US) are in the 3.5GHz band. The 2.3 - 2.5GHz as well as the 5.8GHz band looks promising for US deployment. Sprint-Nextel and Bell South own much of the spectrum in the former band. 700MHz may be suitable for greenfield deployments in rural areas, but would have to be unlicensed until the FCC auctions off those bands.

- US government wants to encourage BWA and has ambitious plans to make 700MHz available in the coming years for network operators.

- IEEE 802.16e may offer substantially better performance, QOS, and reliability then the 3G data technologies (EVDO, HSDPA) and Qualcomm's Media Flow network (video transport to hand sets/ gadgets)

- Expect to see IEEE 802.16e technology in notebooks in late 2007- early 2008 and in hand sets in 2009. The positioning is as a data/ video overlay or separate network that offers better performance and SLAs.