MARAVEDIS

• WiMAX and LTE are developing according to goals for evolution to the 4G multi-service wireless broadband platform that addresses both mobility and high bandwidth applications.
• While WiMAX has broadened to become more mobile and capable of being used for media services, 3G cellular has become increasingly broadband resulting in practical convergence between these fields of development. What’s more, both are driven to use the same core sets of technologies, authentication and handoff, network management, dissimilar network roaming that align goals for network operation and user experience.
• Multi-mode SoC and device designs are increasingly capable of delivering a user experience that disregards the differences between WiMAX and cellular. If the user can make use of services that transit from WiMAX to cellular networks, the argument in favor of control of the huge market share currently held by cellular becomes mute.
• The argument that the huge investment in development of the cellular industry sets it apart from WiMAX also breaks down in light of the fact that many of cellular’s most prominent contributors are also contributing their technology, design, production and marketing capabilities to WiMAX. Operators may convert or cross-sell their cellular customers to WiMAX to gain additional revenues.
• Mainstream regulatory organizations, including ITU, are setting the requirements for next generation wireless systems to which both WiMAX and 3GPP/3GPP2 aspire.
• Next generation wireless will be based on OFMDA which causes a similar discontinuity of air interfaces from 3G for LTE and WiMAX.
  
  

While practical differences in technical implementations, market momentum, regulation of spectrum, and corporate support between WiMAX and LTE remain, the gap continues to shrink such that it looks increasingly like the gap between one generation of mainstream cellular system and the next. As with every cellular system, operator decisions regarding adoption of WiMAX depend on detailed business case analysis that takes into account all known factors for successful deployment and business development. This includes how established business will be affected as more open broadband access is adopted.

It can be easily argued that the wireless industry is at the threshold of fundamental changes caused by a plunge into open IP environments that run on top of the wireless networks. Regardless of whether the network has a WiMAX or LTE label pasted on it the change threatens captive service models if the transition is not pursued deliberately. The adversarial position being fostered on WiMAX is more to do with WiMAX forcing the inevitable, not the end result. And the reasons for success will have more to do with how effectively business opportunities are developed and how immediate they force new service delivery paradigms. Having good WiMAX chips, systems and software is essential but to building useful networks, but from the operator’s perspective this is similar to how PC and networking hardware is essential to creation of the networked paradigm of computing: an enabler of new applications and business operations. The competitive details of how this disruptive change comes about are basis for arguments, some with major impacts on business decisions and results. But the posturing of the overall debate as being WiMAX versus cellular as if they aren’t both headed toward the same end game is increasingly being seen as ridiculous.

We contend that WiMAX is another variant of cellular which faces the same hurdles for adoption as a major new system development, such as LTE, that is cast within the traditional cellular standards development groups. While the approach of WiMAX and 3GPP/3GPP2 started out from a different set of objectives, fixed-nomadic data versus mobile voice, the technologies and market demand has evolved over the past seven years to become very similar.

What’s more, the evolutionary path directs both fields of development toward the same basic goals and sets of technologies, making arguments that these are distinct impractical:

• WiMAX 802.16e-2005 looks very likely to be accepted as a member of IMT-2000 cellular.
• WiMAXm 802.16m/j will be proposed for IMT-Advanced
• LTE, the next generation of systems from the 3G camp, will similarly use OFDMA and be proposed for IMT-Advanced.
• Major goals for IMT-Advanced include an evolutionary framework upon which multiple classes of services and scale of operation can be developed. The goals of ITU for 4G look very similar to what WiMAX has become over the past three years as major telecommunications companies and operators have influenced development.

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Incumbent Suppliers Argue the Differences

Ericsson, the world’s largest supplier of cellular infrastructure, has renounced the importance of WiMAX. Earlier this year, Ericsson announced that they were pulling the plug on development of WiMAX and would devote their B3G efforts to develop LTE. Ericsson has resold WiMAX equipment from Airspan but has never committed significant effort to development of WiMAX internally. Strategically, it has never made sense for them to push WiMAX, or any alternative, that may dilute their own market position.

Ericsson executive vice president Bert Nordberg contends in the June 18th issue of the Globes online magazine, "We have nothing against WiMAX, but I have to say that it has no business model. This at least is Ericsson's conclusion about the matter. Therefore we're not investing in this area at all. What is supposed to work on WiMAX already works on cellular 3G.”

Counterpoint: One thing that is unarguable is that the cellular industry has evolved and managed to survive adoption of new wireless interfaces that were not directly backward compatible. This has been driven by the need to deliver better levels of voice and higher bandwidth data service. Operators would prefer to see systems evolve on the same technology platform long enough to enjoy profits, but have been driven to adopt new cellular systems that provide a commercial advantage despite the need to commit large capital expenditure to displace or deploy next generation systems into new spectrum. The business case for 3G deployment is clearly demonstrated, but as the need for bandwidth continues to grow, so the case for a shift to B3G (beyond 3G) systems based on OFDMA technology is progressively strengthened.

Bert Nordberg says, "They talk about WiMAX having 30 million customers in 2010," says Nordberg. "But by that time, cellular broadband will have 500 million subscribers. These are completely different orders of size. If we have learned anything from the history of technology adoption in the telecommunications market, it is that standardization has huge power, and cellular is the standard.”

Two points: 1) The wireless industry has broadened and matured to be focused on multiple classes of service. The vision for IMT-Advanced evolution to 4G is for highly scalable multi-service evolutionary platforms. While the path of development is likely to be dominated in numbers by mobile applications, the trend is for more diverse and specialized services commanding higher profit margins that may prove more fundamental to overall business development. The majority of future profits will likely come from extended data networks and services, not from basic voice or data connections. 2) Ethernet is the predominant standard for wired data communications and business more directly extends to the WiMAX. Open use of Internet communications and applications is part of the converged landscape of fixed-mobile technology and market convergence. It is myopic to consider cellular mobile market momentum as a sole defensible position, particularly since WiMAX can translate that via multi-mode to new IP service networks. Although wireless communications has been defined within various standards development groups and sets of companies that have technology and commercial agendas, WiMAX is a cellular technology, for the most part indistinct from established cellular by virtue of the increasingly overlapping road maps for development. If a cellular operator adopts WiMAX which is multi-mode compatible with their existing cellular network, their customers hardly need to know. WiMAX does also appeal to alternative service providers and various classes of service that are distinct from mainstream mobile cellular. However, these can take advantage of cost dynamics achieved in mobile markets and roaming agreements to extend the user environment. Standardization does have huge power in helping to drive costs and market adoption. Convergence between IT/Networking, Internet, radio, music and TV media and new interactive PtP viral music and video as well as mobile and fixed communications drive multiple participants together to influence overall product and market development. While mobile cellular dominates in terms of volume, it does not dominate in terms of applications, content or dollars and openness of development and user participation. The WiMAX standard comes about at a time that opening up of many classes of service to the benefits of standardization is practical.

Several more arguments can be made for a shift to B3G platforms that take better advantage of evolving trends in smart antennas and granularly adopted smart wireless broadband networks. The cellular wireless approach can be criticized in it’s entirety as being too constrained to pursue the coming generation of wireless development: without a major re-write that will make LTE more similar to WiMAX than 3G, incapable of being granularly organized and deployed into open IP use scenarios. ITU’s goals for IMT-Advanced appear quite bold: A multi-service platform capable of providing per-user bandwidths of 1 Gbps fixed-nomadic and 100 Mbps mobile. Asking Ericsson how they plan to achieve 4G performance in LTE or beyond has delivered a response that is very close to the path of development WiMAX is already well on the way to achieving. That flips the debate about continuity of technology developments to place LTE as the follower rather than the leader of the dominant emerging mandates. And the inevitable reorganization of wireless business models along lines of open rather than prescribed content and applications conspires to shift the debate to a matter of when not if new operator revenue models will emerge.

The gains in performance needed to deliver 4G will not come from advances in either CDMA or core OFDM interface technologies but from how networks are organized and deployed to make multiple use of available spectrum and source content and applications resources within the distributed network. Delivering the performance gains has more to do with building of smart networks that incorporate wireless than wireless itself. 4G is a wireless broadband network with everything that implies. OFDMA is the core link technology for WiMAX and LTE 4G, but the performance gains must be built upon through an evolution more to do with how networks. The impact of the evolutionary shift to take advantage of the ‘spatial’ and architectural domain of wireless development will be to greatly increase bandwidth density while reducing costs. Suffice it to say that the shift is to a new evolutionary platform with all that this implies: An additional dimension of development that will deliver 3X-10X total network throughput improvement over cellular wireless. What may be the factor that scares up protests to WiMAX the most is the recognition that it is rapidly evolving to deliver on a frontier of new developments that have just started to unfold.

Is the debate about WiMAX being a development that is outside the mainstream of cellular development or is it that the entire field of wireless is converging and that brings into play additional industry participants and markets? Put directly, who owns wireless broadband? Is it a select group of mobile companies or a broadened field of development that increasingly includes networking, IT and media interests? We think the momentum is shifting to allow a new contender: Both WiMAX and LTE will battle in the ring for the 4G crown.

This may appear to add to problems of harmonization, but systems re increasingly harmonized at higher levels of functionality and converged via multimode at the user device level. Spectrums are also increasingly harmonized through device integration. An enlightening example of this trend is incorporation of Qualcomm Flo/MediaFlo into 3G devices in Europe and the United States: the dissimilar technologies are converged at the chip-set and device level with integration into higher levels. The decision to use MediaFlo/Flo becomes the operator’s commercial decision, not so much a standards debate. Likewise, we expect decisions regarding WiMAX to resolve on practical concerns and for discussions about what is or is not cellular to become meaningless.

Enterprises and individuals help to reduce use of increasingly costly and ecologically damaging fossil fuels while maintaining high standards of living by organizing transports and other activities around communications. The missing link in achieving the goals both the productivity and enterprise organization goals of Business and Government 2.0 has been the immediacies and richness of personal broadband communications. While there is no ‘magic bullet’ but rather development of both better conservation methods and many alternatives sources of energy, low cost and rich wireless communications can play a from a contributory to a central role in a multitude of efforts. What should also be clear is that in an age in which a large percentage of workers in modern societies are engaged in information/knowledge occupations and entertainment is increasingly mobile, great opportunity is developing for the role that the next generation of wireless should play. Of immediate importance is the use of wireless to enable the shift from travel to immersive communications and make use of transport more efficient.

It should also become apparent that always on universal broadband communications provides new ways to monitor and control power, people and operations that can have a significant positive ecological impact. What is exciting is that this new age of communications provides ways to both enrich enterprises and personal lifestyles at the same time that it favorably impacts the ecological and provides health, and other tangible benefits. While the focus is to reduce ecological impacts, often the best way to accomplish the task is through growth of new products and services that enhance rather than restrict profits and are attractive to the public.

It is difficult to write short article on a subject that is embryonic and that covers such a wide range of industry and government domains and potential actions as is the case for Green communications. Therefore, we will provide an outline and some reference points to consider. We invite members of the industry and government to participate.

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Some Ways NG Unified Communications Can Enable the Green Economy

• ‘Seat to the street’ connectedness to office resources and personal communications. Always on broadband connectivity bridges the gap in personal communications between people and locations and creates new possibilities for business and government.
  • Telecommuting: Only 12% of information workers currently telecommute 2 or more days per week. Estimates range as much as 70% of people is engaged in information work in developed countries. The most common reason given in surveys among those not participating is lack of the same resources as found in the office.
  • Remote workers who could avoid coming into central locations if access and operating methods provided access and input of office resources in the field.
    
    
• Transportation demand management: Resources can be better managed to suit demand.
• Always-connected populace with self-organizing, viral adoption SaaS for access to public and private transportation. Early examples of user organized ride sharing are seen in Boston, Washington D.C. ‘slug lines’. Subscriptions to vehicle sharing services that have sprung up in many cities are another example. These can be greatly enhanced and extended with GPS-mapping and location and ‘see-me, follow-me’ services.
• Power grid monitoring and control: Costs can be lowered and services made more efficient by more extensive monitoring, demand scheduling and control of power plant, transmission and loads that is enabled by lower cost, unified communications.
• Conferencing and collaboration services: ‘Everywhere’ rich media communications provides more opportunities to shift from travel to centralized to location based services. Greater collaboration between organizations and individuals is made feasible that replaces and enhances many operations and functions including sales, maintenance, insurance settlement, appraisals, advertising, and social work.
• Home and business power monitoring and peak demand load shedding.
• Reduced power used in IT and networking through distribution of resources.

These are among many ways that next generation unified, personal broadband communications can be harnessed to help reduce the reliance and improve efficiency of transportation, power consumption, business and government operations and personal and group activities that can have a substantial impact on the environment.

Among the tasks facing the industry is encouraging creativity to develop new ways to shift information based work and entertainment from requiring travel to greater degree of collaboration and engagement between people and information. Leading industry organizations, such as WCAI, Wireless Communications Association International, have begun committees to provide a forum for Green communications

WCA Green Technology Task Force: http://wcai.com/taskf_green_technology.php

Green4G Communications Organization: http://www.green4g.com

The only way this gap can be filed is by the use of wireless broadband. No wired network has the degree of immediacy and flexibility that brings people and information together.. that molds information and computing environments to the user. No system that works via fixed location can become the 'information super highway' that can replace the need to commute or that will fit lifestyle to work in the Information Age.

Widely available IP based broadband wireless access fills the gap between business and government operations that occur within the domain of the organization and those that occur in the field and among telecommuters.

The major reasons why Enterprise 2.0/Government 2.0, telecommuting and similar efforts to organize around information rather than central location organized work flows is that the immediacy and availability of information and rich media access has been lacking. What fills the gap is giving individuals real-time, everywhere access. This bridges the gap between office and remote location and opens up many opportunities for better connecting with customers and government clients.

The communications industry can and should take a direct role in developing and promoting the use of technology and collaborative "Enterprise 2.0"/Government 2.0 and other initiatives to reduce global warming. This should move quickly from a wish list or discussion topic about what can or might be done to what will be committed to make happen now and set in motion for the future.

Corporations such as Verizon must take action now.
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Going past what I think is corporate and civil responsibility, there is tremendous benefit for the communications and converged IT/networking, communications, and entertainment industries to pick up the banner of the "Green4G" future:

1) Communications, particularly broadband wireless, is a key enabler of new organization and personal methods that can be used very effectively to reduce impacts on global warming.

2) Benefits go beyond ecological concerns: Increased productivity for corporate and government operations are now sufficiently proven to move forward with legislative and corporate commitments.

3) Being Green is beautiful: This is a great corporate image and morale booster that we should all feel good to contribute.

4) A Green4G future will result in organizing society more around information and people and less around buildings and static location of information. Green4G enhances lifestyle as well as it reduces the need to hop in the car to fight routine traffic.

Global Warming is a reality: We either face it boldly, deny it cowardly, or kill our progeny selfishly.

Time for all to put their actions where their mouths are.

- Contributed by Douglas Ethridge

The common misconception about WiMAX stems from past experience: previous wireless systems have been narrowly defined: WiFi is understood as a local network that can be extended to hotspots. Cellular mobile is mobile and widely available but is more costly for use as broadband.

Unlike anything in the past, WiMAX and LTE are capable of delivering multi-service: they can be used for very high bandwidth links and it can be used for wide area Internet access or mobile communications at variable speeds. Although this is common knowledge, many articles are stilted to compare WiMAX with either WiFi or cellular as if these individual applications were its primary use model.

A premise is that next generation wireless systems must fit multiple needs and that the same users will tend to use wireless communications in multiple ways at different times and places. If the multiple use model makes sense, then it also makes sense that systems that can support multiple types of devices and multi-purpose devices that cover both local and distant coverage will be needed.

A NG mobile network, or any other wide area mobile network for that matter, needs to have a high density of base stations to provide reliable coverage and support large numbers of users. Generally, the higher the bandwidth per user, the greater the number of base stations required. But cellular technologies are not easily scaled to networks organized as ‘fempto’ or ‘pico’ base stations or tiered networks.

WiFi shows some of the promise of wireless networks that are scaled from the local network and then extended out, rather than built primarily as macro-cells down to the user device. This is also the case for WiFi MESH fixed-nomadic networks: cities like San Francisco require thousands of MESH routers/base stations to be deployed. A major cost benefit of a scalable wireless network technology such as WiFi and WiMAX is that these can be deployed at relatively low cost compared to 'traditional' wireless networks. Metropolitan scale 'muni-Fi' networks require network engineering, planning, permitting, etc. similar to traditional cellular networks but these are not as difficult or expensive to deploy or manage. Part of that is because WiFi (or WiMAX) networks can be set up as 'raw pipes' rather than an orchestrated set of services. At it's simplest, WiMAX or LTE are just conduits to the Internet and can be requisitioned and managed like any other ISP service. Cellular networks require more work on the interface... the devices like cell phones have to be customized for each provider and they primarily operate as a limited window to broader services outside the control of the network operator. That control costs money up front to develop and operate. It's often a good investment but does not have a similar flexibility of WiMAX, open LTE or WiFi.

If you take a look at an example of muni-Fi, you can see how cheap these are compared to a typical cellular network. This is very much comparing 'apples and oranges' but is none-the-less a worthwhile comparison: The EarthLink-Google network for San Francisco, covering some 1,500 square miles at 85%+ coverage to 1st-2nd story dwellers, is expected to cost $15-$20 million for network design and deployment. The costs of building a cellular network in the same coverage area would be a minimum of five times that amount and quite likely 7X-10X the cost. But the business cases are much different: cellular networks can be expected to attract large numbers of ongoing and new paying customers. WiFi is a network for cheap bastards who will complain about paying $20 per month. Cellular networks are highly mobile and have a high degree of coverage. But still, the impact of the ability to build a network using low cost WiFi technology is evident. A major difference is that typical WiFi B.S./routers are smaller than cellular base stations and can be mounted on lamp posts, tops and sides of buildings, etc. Cellular base stations are primarily installed on dedicated cell phone towers at a total cost of $100,000 to $250,000 per installation. When mounted on roof tops, cellular base stations require more space due to larger size and power requirements. The way cellular networks must b built greatly limits the flexibility and increases the cost of deployment. National deployments of mobile phone systems can run into the billions.

WiMAX, much like cellular mobile, is primarily a 'structured and managed network'. But this new technology platform has been designed and implemented to be highly scalable. WiMAX can be implemented in tiered and MESH networks and contain a variety of base station sizes and types. Unlike current cellular technologies, WiMAX uses SOFDMA, and several adaptive modulation, channel and power management methods which comprise a much more robust and adaptable system. The mainstream cellular industry will begin a shift to an OFDM based 4G cellular platform, LTE (long term evolution), in another 3-4 years. Although WiMAX is primarily designed for use in licensed spectrum as a managed system similar to mobile cellular, it also benefits from the increased modularity and scalability similar to WiFi.

In fact, WiMAX is much more modular and scalable than either WiFi or current cellular systems. It can be built in stages and to fit diverse and developing business models: Deployed simple as an Internet or VPN pipe or PtP or campus network without customized services. And initial deployments can use macro-scale cell size with limited numbers of base stations. To build a mobile network does take considerable up-front investment in design and building of the network and customized web portal and any services such as VoIP or IPTV that the operator wishes to offer. This is normally a different business structure and scale of offering than a local ISP or network operation: marketing costs alone can run into the millions per metropolitan area. But given all that, WiMAX still works out to be deployable at much lower cost because a large piece of the cost is in site requisition, planning, permitting, and deployment. It is simpler, cheaper and faster to deploy networks that take advantage of 'femto', pico, micro, mini, macro, and maxi scale base stations and scalable systems than it is to build networks using more complex, less adaptive cellular technologies.

Some of the different business models WiMAX can serve:

• An initial macro-cell deployment strategy that requires lower capital than deployments of larger numbers of smaller base stations.
• As subscriber demand increases a macro-cell deployment can be restructured to smaller cells and tiered base station deployments that can support larger numbers of users and higher overall bandwidth.
• Additional types of service can be supported by the same network: WiMAX can support IPTV, VoIP, Internet connections, VPNs, point-to-point links/T1 replacement within the same platform. This can be grown more ‘organically’, taking advantage of lessons learned as markets develop.
• WiMAX can be deployed as a large scale packaged or mobile service, bypassing the scaled development approach. However, the system is designed to be an ‘evolutionary rather than revolutionary’ wireless platform. Despite some early disagreements on the direction WiMAX/802.16 developments should take, Intel and others have provided a migration path for customers of early WiMAX fixed version deployments. The SOFDMA based mobile version has been developed as a flexible framework platform that will allow advancements of the wireless system without much of the obsolescence typical of the menagerie of cellular wireless platforms.
• WiMAX can be developed as multi-mode systems that in conjunction with established users of cellular networks can slide along side the usage patterns and business momentum of both the cellular and Internet markets. WiMAX is both a middle ground and future roadmap for wireless needs.
• WiMAX may see development of ‘multi-spectrum’ systems and devices to provide both long range and high bandwidth capabilities using spectrum that is purposed depending on frequency dependent propagation characteristics and available spectrum bandwidth.
• WiMAX will be positioned as a multi-mode system with WiFi. These systems can be made to overlap and serve the same focus of services including VoIP, IPTV, person-to-person/group communications and file sharing and Internet access. The combination of WiFi/MAX will be made a seamless experience in those geographic regions the networks are sufficiently deployed.
• WiMAX can serve special uses such as homeland defense, emergency response, corporate and campus networks, utility monitoring and control and other uses which take advantage of low cost or high degree of scalability of the system.
• The Mobile Multi-hop Relay (MMR) extension of WiMAX can extend coverage, increase bandwidths, or provide increased reliability and scalability to deployments. MMR is being actively pursued by homeland defense and military branches of the U.S. government and has already seen significant development and trial deployments in Taiwan and Korea. One way MMR can be deployed is as rapid deployment ‘first responder’ systems in case of natural disaster or terrorist acts.

WiMAX is designed to cost effectively serve many types of uses. The trends in the cellular industry and among wireless WISPs and wired communications networks have common threads: Usage patterns are evolving to higher bandwidth, more localized content. Likewise, business models are driven to packaged services including mobile phone, rich media, and higher bandwidth data. WiMAX should not be viewed as a direct replacement for cellular mobile: there will be a huge ongoing need for the purpose mobile phones which are gaining in popularity daily. As market demand for ever increasing mobile bandwidth and rich media and data applications continue to evolve, demand will grow for systems, such as WiMAX, that can deliver an expanded range of applications. Next generation mobile network requirements are not just for either extreme of wireless: not just for mobility or just for very high or reliable bandwidth services but must be capable of satisfying both. The justification for operators is that driving multiple revenue streams will result in overall higher revenues and a less commoditized product mix. Extrapolation of current customer retention patterns heightens this argument.

The long range road map for wireless both includes increased numbers of devices and applications and simplification through the cutting of wired connections and adoption of systems and methods that bridge the multiple personal, local, community and wide areas of use we have today. This contradictory set of demands on wireless systems will be met by systems most capable of operating across multiple bands of spectrum, on multiple types of devices, and serve multiple types of applications. Simplification and extended capabilities will also come in the form of multi-mode and multi-spectrum devices that hide the technology from the concern of the user. WiMAX is not a panacea but has been very deliberately sculpted as the broadest single system of technology to answer the needs of next generation wireless.

This article makes obvious points, but WiMAX continues to be compared by many in the press and some analysts on a per-application, services as status-quo basis. Although the perceptions are shifting, a clearer understanding of WiMAX’ role in the evolution of wireless will be years in development.