Unwired Australia spearheads new WiMAX roaming alliance
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Australasian operators set up 'spectrum club' Roaming is one of the critical success factors for any network seeking to be a global standard, and WiMAX is no exception. So far, the main roaming activity has centered on the pre-WiMAX Wi-Bro system, with the formation of the Wi-Bro and Mobile WiMAX Community (WMC) by leading Asian operators plus Covad.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Sprint Nextel plans to cooperate with enterprises on the rollout of its WiMax mobile broadband network, letting the customers install and own short-range base stations in their buildings with automatic roaming onto the carrier's WiMax network outside. Enterprises will be a big market for the WiMax service, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint, in an interview Wednesday at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The service, planned for a national rollout next year under the Xohm brand name, is designed to deliver Internet access at megabits per second on a standards-based technology that has been heavily promoted by Intel. For enterprises, it will be similar to Wi-Fi, only more secure and with easy roaming onto a carrier network that spans whole metropolitan areas, Gude said. Sprint has sent out an RFP (request for proposals) for WiMax femtocells, or miniature base stations meant to serve a home or other small area, Gude confirmed. He expects large enterprises to buy and deploy femtocells for consistent coverage across their offices and campuses, maintaining control over them as they do with current Wi-Fi networks. Sprint will work with enterprises and building owners to provide roaming onto the carrier network from WiMax femtocells or, in some cases, indoor Wi-Fi networks, he said. The small cells won't be needed in homes because the main network will be able to deliver good in-home coverage by itself, according to Gude. Earlier this week, Sprint started selling femtocells for its CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) phone network in a trial rollout aimed at homes. The carrier and its partner, wireless broadband company Clearwire, will run Xohm on licensed spectrum but plan a business model far different from that of 3G mobile data offerings. Customers will be able to use Xohm for any type of application on the Internet, and client devices will be sold at retail stores without the subsidies mobile operators typically provide for phones. The technology could be included in a wide range of devices including handhelds, cameras, and even cars, the companies said. WiMax will go into future notebooks through Intel's Echo Peak chipset, a module for the company's next-generation Montevina platform for notebooks, which Intel announced Wednesday. Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, and other manufacturers have said they will include WiMax in notebooks in 2008, according to Intel. Montevina notebooks are to hit the market in May. Although WiMax devices will be up against 3G products that are subsidized by carriers, the ability to buy the device separately from the service will be a real advantage, Insight64 analyst Nathan Brookwood said. Consumers don't like having to sign up for a two-year mobile plan as they typically do in the U.S. before they even know whether the carrier's service works in their homes. And notebooks, for example, sell without subsidies today, he pointed out. Xohm will be sold in a variety of ways, including monthly subscriptions, short on-the-spot purchases and "try-and-buy" offers with a period of free service, the companies said. They haven't disclosed pricing. Together, Sprint and Clearwire plan to reach 100 million U.S. residents next year, in about 30 markets including some small cities. Sprint plans to have trials in place in Chicago and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area by the end of this year. Clearwire already has a pre-standard network with about 300,000 customers across the country and plans to deploy standard mobile WiMax in the Portland, Oregon, area in the first half of next year. It is running a trial there now.
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Sprint Nextel yesterday announced a series of partnerships aimed at deploying a high-speed wireless network called WiMax, as it offered glimpses of the new technology at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
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WiMax technology, including a module that goes inside a wiring closet and work alongside cellular, Wi-Fi and public safety networks, will be shown at this week's WiMax World conference in Chicago.
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Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday announced a 2.0 billion dollar (1.68 billion US) plan to provide fast and affordable Internet access across the vast country.
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A new chipset from Qualcomm called Gobi promises WAN wireless connections to laptop users globally.
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Australia announced that it had agreed to host a new US military communications base, calling it a practical expression of the strong alliance between the two countries.
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New WiMax partners say they will blanket the U.S. with an open network on the 700MHz band.
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Sprint and Samsung have extended their WiMax partnership with the Korean vendor being named the lead provider of infrastructure equipment for the New York market.
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(InfoWorld) - The working group for the emerging IEEE 802.20 mobile broadband standard, which was suspended last year after a fight over members' real company affiliations, has changed its voting rules. In the IEEE 802.20 working group, each entity -- including vendors, university research groups, and other bodies -- will have one vote. Typically in IEEE networking standards groups, members vote as individuals regardless of whom they work for. The working group was suspended in June 2006 after allegations that Qualcomm was improperly trying to dominate the process and that its then-chairman, Jerry Upton, had identified himself as an independent consultant but was paid by Qualcomm. Upton has since disclosed his work as a consultant for Qualcomm. The latest move, made Tuesday during a meeting of several IEEE standards bodies in San Francisco, came amid continuing concerns about domination of the group, 802.20 Committee Chairman Paul Nikolich said in a written statement. The change will help deliver a standard in a timely way, he said. Worries about Qualcomm's influence over the standards process seem to have continued. At a meeting in Montreal in May, some members of the group expressed concern that the company had two votes on the working group's Editorial Group because both the chair and one member represented Qualcomm, according to the draft minutes of the meeting. The chair clarified that the chair was only to vote when needed to break a tie. IEEE 802.20 is intended as a multi-megabit mobile data and voice system. Some of the technology that has played a role in it was developed by Flarion Technologies, which Qualcomm acquired in 2005. With 3GÂ cellular networks now going after the 1MbpsÂ barrier, there is no shortage of potential rivals to IEEE 802.20. Another mobile broadband standard, IEEE 802.16e, is being adopted by many system vendors and service providers under the WiMax name. One advantage of 802.20, proponents have said, is that it can be used in faster moving vehicles than can WiMax. Sprint Nextel, having previously tested Flarion's system, last year chose WiMax for its nationwide 4G network for commercial launch that will be launched next year. The company said Thursday it plans to join with ClearWireÂ for broader coverage. Sprint Nextel chose WiMax because it already existed as a technology and a standard and was being embraced by a large number of equipment vendors, including Nokia, said Atish Gude, senior vice president of mobile broadband operations at Sprint.
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Corporate wireless networking specialist Aruba this week unveiled what it calls a new architecture for enterprise WLANs: the Wi-Fi grid.
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After an apparently successful initial test run in parts of Washington State, T-Mobile USA today is ready to roll out its first hybrid WiFi/EDGE phone service: its UMA-based Hot Spot @ Home.  The idea is to enable customers to drop their land lines altogether, without picking up someone else's bundled service that would usurp those savings.
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Venture launched by Craig McCaw would deploy WiMax network to deliver Internet services starting in 2006.
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Almost a year after Sprint Nextel Corp. announced it would develop a mobile broadband network using WiMax technology, the wireless provider said Thursday it was teaming up with competing provider Clearwire Corp. to help build it.
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The Taiwanese government added several companies to a&#160;growing list of WiMax wireless broadband technology partners&#160;on Monday, including Alcatel-Lucent, Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, and Sprint Nextel.Taipei has been putting together incentive packages for multinationals to entice them to build WiMax research and development centers in Taiwan, work on development projects with companies from the island, and to make the island a part of the standards-making process for the technology, which delivers high speed Internet service over the airwaves.Intel was an early champion of WiMax as a replacement for the Wi-Fi wireless networking standard uses for Internet access in coffee shops, airports and other places in much of the developed world. The chip giant has already signed a similar agreement with Taiwan, and is working with Taiwanese computer parts makers to ready the technology for inclusion in laptop PCs next year.&quot;We believe partnerships between Taiwan WiMax players and global leaders will speed up the development of WiMax technologies,&quot; said Steve Ruey-Long Chen, Taiwan&#39;s economics minister, in a speech at the 2007 WiMax Forum, which opened in Taipei on Monday.The agreements are memorandums of understanding, nonbinding pacts to work together to promote WiMax. Most signatories of such agreements have already pledged to invest in Taiwan or work with Taiwanese companies.&quot;Nokia Siemens Networks already has partnerships with Taiwanese companies. This memorandum of understanding provides the framework to extend those partnerships,&quot; said Marko Tiesmaki, head of business development in broadband wireless access at the company.Alcatel-Lucent has already pledged to establish a WiMax lab in Taiwan, said Patrick Plas, chief operating officer of the company&#39;s GSM/WiMax business. Its memorandum signifies its openness to working with Taiwan to promote WiMax technology, he said.The pacts are part of Taiwan&#39;s plan to become one of the largest producers of WiMax equipment in the world. The island is already positioning itself to be one of the fastest adopters of WiMax wireless broadband Internet connectivity outside of North America. Officials see the technology as a good way to spread broadband Internet access throughout the island, which includes remote mountain villages and sparsely populated outlying islands.Taiwan often signs such agreements with multinationals to stimulate technology development on the island. Such deals can encourage companies to build technology-specific R&amp;D centers on the island through the use of incentives such as tax-free status, research grants, rent-free space in science parks and more.Other companies have also signed memorandums of understanding with Taiwan, including Starent Networks, NEC, Nortel Networks, and German WiMax tester Rohde &amp; Schwarz.Last week, Taipei pledged to spend $1.22 billion to build out Taiwan&#39;s WiMax network over the next five years, including $1 billion for a fiber optic backbone running the length of the island and $220 million for WiMax base stations and other equipment.The island has been promoting its M Taiwan project, or Mobile Taiwan, to speed up Internet mobility and encourage companies on the island to invest more in building products for WiMax, 3G (third generation) mobile telecommunications and other wireless technologies. The government has granted WiMax licenses to six operators, and some of them plan to start offering services as early as next year.
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(InfoWorld) - WiMax World 2007 opens in Chicago Tuesday with major service providers and network equipment vendors expected to offer demonstrations and a few details on plans for mobile WiMax deployments that will hit their stride next year. Sprint Nextel CTO Barry West will provide an update of Sprint's Xohm wireless network in a keynote Wednesday. In August, he said the service will be launched in Chicago and the Washington/Baltimore area by year's end and will reach 100 million users by the end of 2008. Motorola, meanwhile, is planning to demonstrate its coming mobile WiMax technology from a boat in the waters of Lake Michigan. Many of the WiMax plans are focused on major hardware devices being sold to carriers for backhauling wireless signals from outdoor mesh networks that have Wi-Fi connectivity. Sprint's Xohm will be open access, giving WiMax-certified devices like laptops and handhelds the ability to operate at speeds up to 4Mbps, perhaps five times faster than what carriers call third-generation wireless speeds, West said in August. However, one vendor, MobileAccess Networks in Vienna, Va., announced new WiMax hardware today that will work in remote wiring closets of businesses to deliver WiMax capabilities alongside Wi-Fi, cellular, and public safety networks. The MobileAccess WiMax module, to be shown at the trade show, will undergo WiMax certification from Sprint, said MobileAccess CEO Cathy Zatloukal in an interview. "We expect several existing customers will be interested in it," she said. The module will fit inside an existing MobileAccess MA-2000 Universal Wireless Network box now deployed in many businesses to aggregate multiple wireless signals for Wi-Fi, cellular, and public safety, she explained. The value of having a WiMax module to add-in is that it will work alongside existing infrastructure and provides a single cabling infrastructure to support it. One MobileAccess customer, Tommy Russo of Akridge Real Estate Services in Washington, said he plans to add the WiMax module to his MobileAccess hardware when it is available. "WiMax will give us bigger play and more robust service," said Russo, CTO at Akridge, which provides Wi-Fi and cellular services in a downtown building for hundreds of employees and customers. "As more devices use WiMax, which will happen, it enables more things to connect, everything from telephones to laptops with WiMax." Russo said he expects building management and lighting controls could run over WiMax. Someday, WiMax could even be used to merge Wi-Fi and ZigBee, a wireless standard for embedded control devices, he said. Russo said he has seen the MobileAccess module, but he has not tested it and is eager to start testing as soon as possible. His building has been using voice-over-Wi-Fi for about 18 months. The price for the module has not been announced, Zatloukal said. MobileAccess' module is so far unique, although placing WiMax alongside other wireless modes inside a building will be important to other vendors, said Craig Mathias, an analyst at The Farpoint Group in Ashland, Mass., and a Computerworld columnist. MobileAccess competes with LGC Wireless in San Jose and Interwireless in Universal City, Calif., he said. At WiMax World, there will be plenty of demonstrations, including the module by MobileAccess, Mathias said. "The WiMax market is here now, and we'll see a rollout of commercial services this year, so the show is a chance to get your hands on it, to see what it does and what it costs. The reality is coming quickly, and we'll see how successful it will be." Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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(InfoWorld) - Taiwan is moving forward on its wireless broadband Internet initiative by finalizing rules for an upcoming WiMax license auction and preparing its first major WiMax testing zone, officials said Tuesday. The island hopes to be among the world leaders in adopting WiMax. Part of the idea is to boost Taiwanese companies, which already manufacture a lot of related IT gear, by promoting the technology. Officials also want to ensure speedy wireless Internet access for even the most remote areas of the island. WiMax base stations can send broadband Internet signals to far greater distances than the Wi-Fi technology it is meant to replace. Although estimates vary on how far WiMax signals can go, in a densely populated place such as Taiwan, where users are not likely to be positioned within sight of access points, the distance should be between 2 km to 4 km. By the end of this year, government officials will finalize rules for a WiMax license auction meant to dole out radio spectrum to network operators. Currently, the government is debating how many WiMax licenses to issue. The National Communications Commission (NCC), which is charged with creating policy related to WiMax, wants to see nine licenses auctioned. But the ministry under which the NCC operates is pressing for just two, an NCC spokesman said. He said officials still plan to have auction rules in place by the end of this year, despite the disagreement. Early next year, the island's biggest telecommunications service operator, Chunghwa Telecom, will start work on a WiMax test site in Luo-Dong Township, on the northeast coast of Taiwan. By mid-year, over a third of the town's residents will be able to access the network, and the rest of the town will be covered by the end of 2007, said Hsu An-ling, a Chunghwa representative. In early 2008, Chunghwa will expand the network to the rest of Yilan County, where Luo-Dong is located. Nortel Networks is providing mobile WiMax base stations based on the IEEE 802.16e standard for the project, which include antennas capable of demanding applications such as VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) and voice over WiMax. WiMax gained a huge boost earlier this year when U.S. operatorÂ Sprint Nextel announced plansÂ to build a coast-to-coast network using the technology. The company hopes to launch trials by the end of next year, and expand coverage to 100 millionÂ people in 2008. WiMax needed the push because it competes with technologies that could be used in its stead, such as Wi-Fi and 3G (third generation) HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology. Taiwanese mobile phone service operator Far Eastone Telecommunications recently started offering HSDPA in Taiwan.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.