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Companies Betting on WiMAX
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Dec 20, 2006 02:13 PM
from the takin-it-to-the-max dept.
from the takin-it-to-the-max dept.
PreacherTom writes "This week, two companies — NextWave and Clearwire — filed to go public and make their fortunes with WiMAX, a wireless broadband technology expected to make serious inroads into the telecom market by offering a high-speed alternative to DSL, Cable, and other current offerings. Market researcher Gartner Dataquest expects the North American WiMAX services market to swell from 30,000 connections in 2006 to 21.2 million by 2011. Could this be the new backbone of the mobile effort?"
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Mobile: Australian WiMax Pioneer Calls It a Disaster 202 comments
Anonymous Coward writes "Garth Freeman, CEO of Australia's first WiMax operator, sat down at the recent International WiMax Conference in Bangkok and unleashed a tirade about the failings of the technology, leaving an otherwise pro-WiMax audience stunned. His company, Buzz Broadband, had deployed a WiMax network over a year ago, and Freeman left no doubt about what conclusions he had drawn. He claimed that 'its non-line of sight performance was "non-existent" beyond just 2 kilometres from the base station, indoor performance decayed at just 400m and that latency rates reached as high as 1000 milliseconds. Poor latency and jitter made it unacceptable for many Internet applications and specifically VoIP, which Buzz has employed as the main selling point to induce people to shed their use of incumbent services.' We've previously discussed the beginnings of WiMax as well as recent plans for a massive network in India.
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Price, Performance and CONTRACT! (Score:5, Insightful)
If WiMAX lets me connect my devices "in the wild" at a reasonable price and without a hefty contract, then it'll be a winner.
To businesses, nobody's going to drop Verizon or Sprint or Cingular or TMobile's data services for a new offering as long as they're already in an existing relationship and entrenched in hardware (sorry, we just moved to Treos or Blackberries). It's the you and me's of the world -- and we need cheap devices, contracts and rates, or it's just another "thing" that our company pays for.
Re:Price, Performance and CONTRACT! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Price, Performance and CONTRACT! (Score:5, Informative)
While I'm not usually one to defend big business, it's not really all that difficult to cancel your plan after your contract expires. I've done it before, and it's actually a very easy process. As for the period before your contract expires, you *did* sign the contract, presumably in exchange for a huge discount on your phone. You didn't have to sign the contract...you could have paid full price for the phone, and entered into a month-by-month agreement with the provider. It's your own fault if you're not happy with the contract that you signed.
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Why WiMAX will be awesome... (Score:5, Interesting)
Now compare this to my condo, there's generally four to eight wireless networks in range in any room of the house. Some are locked, and some are open. I have my own closed network not broadcasting it's SSID, but the point is plenty of options.
Soon imagine a world where you go to Starbucks, the mall or the airport and you see four to eight wireless networks available. Hmmm... shall I join the local wireless business club for more than I pay for broadband at home, or shall I jump on "FreeWiMAX" instead?
Most likely some sort of ad-supported "FreeWiMAX" network will pop up all over, also some home users, etc... with varying levels of speed and quality, but the point is the local providers have lost their monopoly of service in their areas and finally wireless charges will have to drop and they'll need to actually compete.
WHEEEEEEE!!!
that's not exactly how it works (Score:5, Informative)
It's intended use is more as competition to both local DSL/Cable bandwidth providers, as well as competition for Cell networks.
If whoever owns the spectrum rights for WiMax (like NextWave) decides to offer a reasonable mobile data service over WiMax then it will force Verizon et al to bring their prices down.
Also, VoIP over WiMax could provide a compelling voice platform for competing with cell networks.
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a bit more information (Score:5, Informative)
1) Raise a bunch of investor capital (done)
2) Use the capital to buy out the WiMax spectrum at auction (done)
3) Raise more money with an IPO
4) Use the IPO money to build a residential/business broadband service
At this point they're competing with DSL and cable providers, but not cell networks because the coverage is still spotty. Of course, coverage doesn't matter much for residential service since your house isn't really moving. After they get a good amount of subscribers, then they can:
5) Build out their coverage enough to compete with the Cell networks.
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Re:that's not exactly how it works (Score:4, Informative)
There are two different standards for WiMAX (from an access perspective).
The older 16d standard (designed for fixed environments) can work in unlicensed (5.8 GHz) spectrum and licensed spectrum. The newer 16e standard is only defined for licensed spectrum (2.3, 2.5, and 3.5 GHz). The majority of the service providers will deploy 16e because it supports mobility, in addition to fixed applications.
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Mobile, nothing... (Score:3, Informative)
For rural business locations, there's a big gap between a T1 (very expensive) and dial-up or satellite (both slow in different ways). This would make 95% of their IT issues disappear overnight. (It's amazing how many 'Net apps really don't like ping times in excess of 1000ms.)
Re:Mobile, nothing... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's waiting behind all the other data. Once your link is saturated, latency goes through the roof.
The V.whatever compression could play a factor. DSL's early signal compression was so bad that the problem was the reverse -- gamers were actually preferring dialup because the ping times were actually lower.
Clearwire/Baystar Link (Score:3, Informative)
The electromagnetic spectrum has limits, people. (Score:5, Interesting)
The article mentions the 2.5 GHz specturm. It isn't all that much different than the 2.4 we know and love today, except that the spectrum is licensed. A lot of the other transmission pitfalls will likely remain (Line-of-Sight, etc.)
Two factors are that spectrum is inherently limited, and the higher the frequency, the more power is required to transmit over a given distance. There is already sufficient suspicion that cellular transmissions aren't good for you. I can't imagine WiMax is going to fare much better here, but that has yet to be seen.
While I don't ever care to get WiMax
Re:The electromagnetic spectrum has limits, people (Score:5, Interesting)
We are in a fairly large city in northern Canada, and there is nowhere in town we fail to receive a signal, from a fairly small number of cells located around town. As an old-school dial-up ISP without access to cable or copper infrastructure, NLOS high speed wireless was our holy grail, and this technology delivered. The stuff is black magic, it is something to behold.
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Re:The electromagnetic spectrum has limits, people (Score:3, Informative)
The article mentions the 2.5 GHz specturm. It isn't all that much different than the 2.4 we know and love today, except that the spectrum is licensed.
Yah, but with a license it's likely that devices and access points can transmit at higher powers. That can provide either higher bits/second, or longer distances. Also, does the WiMax standard provide for a larger spectrum allocation than the WiFi does? I don't know, but if it does that would certainly be a boost to available bandwidth.
There is already suff
Re:The electromagnetic spectrum has limits, people (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. What a lot of unnecessarily negative comments to make. I say that because it's not like there's anything that strings them together except that they're negative. 2.5GHz requires more power! Sufficient suspicion that cellular transmissions aren't good for you! This'll require a "huge" amount of spectrum!
Let's deal with them one by one:
1. 2.5GHz isn't ideal, but it's fine for NLOS, almost as good as regular PCS (think about it, it's only 25% higher in frequency.) For Line-of-Sight, it's no problem a
Tech blogs reveal WiMax profitable (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes Please (Score:5, Insightful)
God I hope so, we all know how pitiful the state of broadband is in the US...DSL is cramped(it's a twisted pair of two copper wires) and the cable companies are acting like the greedy pigs they are(expensive, anti-upstream, abusive).
The consumer is desperate for an alternative. Without competition we might as well be living in Communist Russia. Just look at AMD vs. Intel, or nVidia vs. ATI....that is how innovation happens.
This is something we've been waiting for for far too long. Broadband is probably the single-most important innovation of the last 10 years, and it's also one of the most stagnant(especially in the US). We desperately need a new competitor in this market.
In a word..... Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason why this *MAY* pan out for these companies is that even in major urban areas in Canada, you have problems getting xDSL because you're too far away from a CO and they haven't dropped a RDSLAM [dslreports.com] in your subdivision. However, the above services are available up to 5KM or so in any direction from a broadcast tower. I also suspect it's cheaper for telcos to deploy, plus they get the revenue from the modem rental.
throttling (Score:4, Interesting)
I am already using Clearwire... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:some perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Cell phones, like automobiles, were adopted first by the wealthy, then as prices dropped and supplies increased (a connection there???), they became ubiquitous.
As WiMax enters the market, most of the country is a vastly different landscape. The need for broadband is already being met by other means in most places. Near where I live, there is a market for WiMax (being served by Clearwire), because there are no wired alternatives. It is a large market geographically, but not so much in population. That's the kind of market Clearwire has been working in, becasuse it offers them the best chance of success. No real competition means they are selling on the availability of access, not the features of WiMax.
When WiMax becomes the issue, which it will when they expand further into markets already more widely served, the pitch will have to be more specific. So far, I haven't seen WiMax roaming happen, but that would be the benefit that offers something over the local telco or cable company.
21.3 Million in 7 years? Maybe. Is that significant in a world with so many alternatives? Maybe so.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We where a test bed for Nextel's wireless - it was nice and was about 80$ a month for the same services as i get with cable - but the closed the service.
Actual WiMAX customer (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did I choose them? Cost really, I
Re:already available in spain (Score:4, Insightful)
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