From Tuesday, September 25, 2007 through Thursday, September 27, 2007 I'm attending WiMAX World USA 2007 in Chicago, Illinois USA at the McCormick Place convention complex.
Today is Conference Day 1; the exhibit area opens today.
I plan to write a daily article with my impressions. When I have a few moments throughout the day, I'll update that article - not post multiple articles. So, here goes.
08:30 - A Motorola representative called my attention to a Motorola announcement announcing that the first-ever Mobile WiMAX handoff demonstration took place last night during an analyst show and tell that Motorola held. I double checked, and Yes, last night was in fact the first-ever Mobile WiMAX device handoff between Mobile WiMAX base stations. The network in question is a Motorola-built "pre-commercial" network for Sprint XOHM, not merely a demo network slapped-up for WiMAX World. It's thought-provokng that this major milestone was took place only three months or so prior to the commencement of commercial Mobile WiMAX service by Sprint XOHM.
(Click below to continue the story.)
It's cool that Tricia Duryee of the Seattle Times is covering WiMAX World for Times readers... getting it mostly right.
(Wrapup for the day) - At the beginning of this morning's keynotes we were treated to a music video called "WiMAX Love" (soon to be YouTubed, I'm sure). After that, the Barry West Show made another appearance at WiMAX World. Barry's presentations are always "forward looking statements" for Sprint's (always-in-the-future) WiMAX network, but this year his remarks were a lot more specific. Refreshingly, his entire presentation was seemingly off-the-cuff, largely unscripted, being prompted only by a handful of PowerPoint slides.
Here are some of the takeaways from West's talk (recorded offline as Sprint 1xEV-DO Rev. A service was not available in the theatre where the presentation was held):
- There are lies, damn lies, and mobile data rates
- XOHM stands for 1) No resistance (0 ohms), or 2) The name of the mother of all dragons (indestructible?), or 3) acronym for Hugs and Kisses to Her Majesty (Barry's a Brit) from a fellow Sprint employee after looking at Barry's custom XOHM license plate.
- West claims that the biggest breakthrough with Mobile WiMAX is the availability of new (licensed) spectrum. Using wide (20 MHz) channels results in a 90% reduction in cost per bit - 30 Mbps on Mobile WiMAX versus 3 Mbps on 1xEV-DO.
- XOHM won't use subsidies at all and likely not long term contracts. You'll buy the device off the shelf from nearly any retailer and "just sign up" using the device or if it's too simple to be able to sign up on the device (digital camera?), you do it on a web page. "Contracts" will be usage/payment agreements much like Wi-Fi HotSpots - a day's worth of usage, a week, a month, or long term. Each tier gives you a break on the daily rate. The key point is there won't be any more post-usage billing per bit, minute, or destination. West said this one change means "no bad debt", and he said that in reverential tones.
- Sprint / XOHM chose its Mobile WiMAX infrastructure providers - Motorola, Nokia, Samsung not only for their base station expertise but as mobile device manufacturers. To insure that enough, and enough different Mobile WiMAX devices would be available to populate the XOHM network when. XOHM wants to avoid the chicken (network) and egg (devices) issue - which one needs to come first?
- West mentioned mobile video transmission as a compelling new application made possible by Mobile WiMAX. I'd disagree with "new", but I wouldn't disagree with "newly practical", at least the way he explained it. He said that he hopes to be able to attend his granddaughter's first ballet recital (if she decides to take up ballet) virtually, via someone using a handheld camera not to record the recital, but to transmit / stream it. He's right - that's something new that isn't done now very easily - what video you can push through a 1xEV-DO Rev. A or HSPA connection is pretty crummy.
- The XOHM network will know "where you are" and perhaps push information at you based on your interests. West said he enjoys seeing historical buildings, so when he's in Singapore, the network will "know that" and "know" that he enjoys historical buildings and provide him with information about historical buildings in Singapore. This will also be used (abused) by local vendors pushing advertisements at you since (again, according to West) the network knows you like Chinese food and you're near a Chinese restaurant that is having a special.
- XOHM will offer services such as voice as part of XOHM... hopefully ala carte. Other services are voice mail, file storage, email contact information, etc.
West offered some daunting statistics about preparations for soft-launching XOHM service in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington DC by EOY 2006:
- 10,000 sites are being prepared
- 1750 Mobile WiMAX base stations have been ordered for 2007 delivery
- Given that each sector will be expected to provide 40 Mbps forced Sprint to build a new backhaul links via wireless... USING wireless as getting landline circuits from the incumbent telcos would cost way, way too much. Sprint has ordered 2,000 backhaul links.
- 20,000 antennas were almost a showstopper - very few companies can deliver that many antennas in that short of a time
- The EOY 2007 soft launch is mostly because Sprint is building an entirely new back-office system for XOHM and it will take time to work out the bugs before the commercial launch of XOHM in second quarter 2008.
West concluded... "... And we're gonna kick butt!"
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2007 by Steve Stroh except for indicated fair use exerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
(This article was posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access [BWIA]; in this case Sprint Mobile Broadband 1xEV-DO Rev. A... running very s... l... o... w... so far in Chicago.)
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