It's Tuesday, December 4, 2007, and welcome back to Good Day, BWIA, a light compendium of news, items of interest, irreverent commentary, and occasional light analysis relating to Broadband Wireless Internet Access (including WiMAX, public access Wi-Fi, etc.).
Boy... did we get some rain! Woodinville, a suburb of "greater Redmond" in the Seattle area, was one of the hardest-hit areas from a near-record amount of rainfall yesterday, and subsequent flooding. Within a few miles of my home, apartment residents were being evacuated by boat and on the backs of rescue workers and a high-end office park with hundreds of companies was ordered to be evacuated because waters were rising rapidly, pinching off escape routes. It was truly surreal to see the damage caused (I witnessed this scene firsthand) from "just a bit too much rain". For all the impressive technology of Broadband Wireless Internet Access... in such situations it doesn't help nearly as much as the old standbys of broadcast radio giving regular updates of where the real trouble spots are, combined with the immediacy of ordinary people "out in the field" observing what the situation is in realtime and "reporting" that out over broadcast radio. From what I observed, the wireless networks held up well this time despite very heavy use from commuters stuck in standstill traffic because so many peripheral routes were closed.
Today's Clearwire Modem Weather Report - Hollywood Hill, Woodinville, Washington - Alternating 3 and 4 bars Bars; we're getting some wind in the aftermath of yesterday's intense rain, so that may be causing some scintillation.
Sprint keeps sending out feelers what to do about its 2.5 GHz spectrum - wither Mobile WiMAX? Sprint Nextel's fumbling of its proposed Mobile WiMAX network and its pandering to its investors that it's "investigating options" for its 2.5 GHz spectrum is, to me, really starting to impact on Sprint Nextel's overall credibility. Sprint Nextel's latest ramblings, reported in the Financial Times, simply smack of desperation. It's abundantly "clear" (no pun initially intended) that Clearwire is the only US company poised to take full advantage of 2.5 GHz in the US to offer Broadband Wireless Internet Access services. AT&T and Verizon Wireless would probably be willing to buy Sprint Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum, but that would be a horrific strategic blunder in making those two behemoths an even stronger competitive threat against Sprint Nextel - expedited corporate suicide. T-Mobile has its corporate hands full and isn't in position to exploit 2.5 GHz. Coldly realistically, Clearwire is the only company that can immediately exploit Sprint Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum, thus realizing the maximum immediate financial value to Sprint Nextel. If Sprint Nextel continues to dither, executing only half (hearted) measures such as merely deploying Mobile WiMAX in a few token markets, the financial value that Sprint Nextel could realize from its 2.5 GHz spectrum would considerably diminish. It's a Hobson's Choice for Sprint Nextel - it can bow to reality and sell off its 2.5 GHz spectrum to Clearwire, perhaps getting an equity stake in Clearwire's likely subsequent success in offering Mobile WiMAX services. If Sprint Nextel doesn't sell its 2.5 GHz spectrum to Clearwire, it risks damaging Clearwire (as the most viable, motivated, and entity most likely to offer top dollar), diminishes the overall value of its 2.5 GHz spectrum as investors come to realize that Sprint Nextel will just "sit on" the majority of its 2.5 GHz spectrum, and in the end, weakening Sprint Nextel even more. Yes, the proposed partnership with Clearwire was "too complex", but that partnership was the only viable scenario for Sprint Nextel to actually deploy a Mobile WiMAX network - in cooperation with Clearwire, not in competition with them. With the partnership with Clearwire no longer a possibility, Sprint Nextel needs to endure the pain of quickly divesting itself of the 2.5 GHz spectrum and get back to working on its many other challenges - migrating (its few, and shrinking) Nextel users off 800 MHz, continuing to build out its 1xEV-DO Rev. A network on 1.9 GHz spectrum, and try to regain some standing among consumers against marketing onslaughts from AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Confident prediction on my part - Clearwire (being driven behind the scenes by the Machiavellian Craig McCaw) will, in the end, end up controlling Sprint Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum. It's simply a matter of whether Sprint Nextel will bow to that reality and negotiate now, from relative strength, or McCaw ends up picking up Sprint Nextel's 2.5 GHz spectrum much more cheaply from a weakened Sprint Nextel in a corporate fire sale.
Clearwire new service area - Charlotte, North Carolina... but apparently not Mobile WiMAX Conspicuously absent from the announcement of a new service area for Clearwire is the word WiMAX. At all... the word is simply not present at all in the announcement that Clearwire now offers service in the Charlotte area. Curious...
Vecima Networks updates 902-928 MHz WaveRider system with OFDM I remember OFDM being explained to me for the first time. It took Hatim Zaghloul of Wi-LAN quite a while to explain OFDM to me in a way that I could understand it, but once I did, I was amazed with this entirely new way to think of wireless communications. For those that understand OFDM, I'm understating things considerably. To those that don't quite understand OFDM, trust me, it's a really amazing example of a continuous reinvention of wireless technology made possible by applying fast enough... cheap enough... computing power to dealing with issues inherent in wireless communications. I don't recall the exact wording of our conversation, but in our conversation approximately three years ago, Zaghloul said something like that OFDM has been possible for more than a decade... but every radio would have to include a bleeding-edge PC in order to do the requisite processing... which is now done with a commodity Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit. What's notable about the LMS8000 (PDF link) is that it's operating in the license-exempt 902-928 MHz band and is backward compatible with earlier WaveRider systems. Like the much-vaunted 700 MHz licensed band, 902-928 MHz "shoots through trees"; the LMS8000 is claimed to provide up to 8 Mbps throughput in a 5.5 MHz channel; range wasn't stated. Although there's nothing in this announcement about a 700 MHz version, it's interesting that the 700 MHz band continues to be partitioned by its "legacy" 6 MHz (television broadcast) channels... so the LMS8000's use of a 5.5 MHz channel would be a nice fit for 700 MHz.
By Steve Stroh
Fine Print / Boilerplate / Acknowledgements / Credits / FAQs
(Last updated 2007-11-06)
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
Steve
Re: Vecima/WaveRider LMS8000. Believe me when we were developing the design specs for this product we were also working on plans to develop a 700 MHz version. Hats off to Vecima for investing in this platform, not sure if they will take it to 700 MHz. It would make sense since they are already in the 700 MHz space with their DOCSIS-based platform and they have relationships with a lot of the license holders.
A former WaveRider
Remi Gaudet
BTW Steve - I enjoy Good Day BWIA - glad to hear that you are well.
Posted by: Remi Gaudet | December 06, 2007 at 11:04