It's Friday, November 16, 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.).
Google's $4.6B burning a hole in its pocket Google's pledge to bid at least $4.6B in the upcoming US 700 MHz spectrum auctions is much in the news this morning. At their current valuation of around $622/share, that pledge increasingly looks like a just good business to follow through on. But I, like a lot of knowledgeable observers of the wireless industry view the... (what can only be described as, to us) hysteria about the 700 MHz auctions as, at best, misguided, and at worst, totally clueless. Here's just one daunting factoid... it will be expensive to deploy a nationwide 700 MHz network because a significant part of the necessary tower and rooftop infrastructure simply isn't adequate for the much larger antennas that will be needed for 700 MHz. Much of the current tower and rooftop infrastructure is set up for 1.9 GHz used for wireless telephony; 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz antennas are even smaller. The recently-auctioned Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band at 1.7 GHz / 2.1 GHz - close enough that the antennas are the same approximate form factor as those for 1.9 GHz. Those are "bolt-on" additions to towers and rooftops. 700 MHz antennas- think reengineering the tower or rooftop to insure that it's adequate for the increased wind load. For those that think I'm being a bit too alarmist given that legacy Nextel and commercial and public safety two-way radio operate at spectral neighbor 800 MHz... think about it. What's being proposed for 700 MHz are high-bandwidth, intensive-use applications. That means there's going to have to be pretty intense sectorization to insure adequate spectral reuse.
700 MHz definitely isn't the be-all-and-end-all in Broadband Wireless Internet Access. It simply makes more sense for Google to buy Clearwire and Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum and get on with building out a nationwide Mobile WiMAX network on 2.5 GHz. Google has the cash to easily handle the purchases and support building such a new network, Mobile WiMAX technology and systems are mature enough for there to be systems and expertise available off-the-shelf, and the 2.5 GHz spectrum is "virgin-enough" to support a new, truly-built-for-Internet Broadband Wireless Internet Access network. Here's something to think about... much of the investment in building a wireless network has been in the infrastructure... not just the systems on rooftops and towers, but the switching and backhaul. Imagine if Google did build a Mobile WiMAX network as described above. It already has all the back-end infrastructure it needs! The "Googleplex" has enough raw, distributed computing power to handle the two core functions of a network - billing, and switching/routing. Not to mention incredible content generation. It has an email system in GMail, it has news in Google News, it has a billing / payment system in place, it already does VOIP in Google Chat; it even now has interoperability with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) from its acquisition of GrandCentral.
Unfortunately, and I say this with a heavy heart, while Google could really ignite competitive Broadband Internet Access in the US with the wireless strategy outlined above (remember, it's one of the chief proponents of Network Neutrality...), despite its awesome capabilities, Google hasn't exhibited much cluefulness in any of its wireless strategy to date. Like with the compromises Apple had to make for the iPhone to be minimally acceptable to wireless telephony carriers, trying to effect change by working "within the system" of wireless telephony will be, at best, half-measures. It's a real shame that Google isn't listening to ideas such as outlined above, at least at the executive level that can implement real change.
Today's Clearwire Modem Weather Report - Hollywood Hill, Woodinville, Washington - Solid 2 Bars; perfectly dreary wet weather today really making the OFDM work to the limits of its capability.
Clue being offered from Wi-Fi "stealing" Another story much in the news today was a recent survey in which a lot of people admitted "stealing" Internet access via unprotected Wi-Fi access. Yup... happens a lot. A bad thing? Yes and No. Yes, because most people don't understand that by not securing their Wi-Fi access point, they're not just allowing people to use their Internet access, they're allowing access to their personal networks, including all the "behind the firewall" vulnerabilities like file sharing between computers, monitoring Internet access including often-unencrypted passwords, documents being sent to printers, etc. No, because the increase in traffic on one's Internet connection is barely noticeable (unless the person connecting is a heavy downloader, peer-to-peer user, or a Skype Supernode). So... what if Wi-Fi access point vendors added some code (and that's all it would take - additional code) to make it easy to securely share Internet access via Wi-Fi without compromising internal LAN traffic? Making a bigger leap... what if this was all done in a coordinated way, with standardized passwords or authentication? FON is an interesting start; Meraki Networks is another. If you're willing to think a bit deeply about it, there's a lot of wisdom in the techie joke that the world's biggest Wireless Internet Service Provider, with more nodes installed than any other, is "linksys" on Wi-Fi channel 6. Think that's irrelevant in the context of widely-deployed wireless telephony networks? Well, T-Mobile is rapidly making Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) over Wi-Fi telephony mainstream. Right now, HotSpot @Home works only on a specific customer's Wi-Fi... but what if it worked on any Wi-Fi... would that change things? Yeah.
Put it together... Google Mobile WiMAX providing the backhaul for lots and lots and lots of open access Wi-Fi...
If Metropolitan Wi-Fi can make it there... it can make it... anywhere (as Frank Sinatra rolls over in his grave from the bad allegory to his signature song New York, New York). Esme Vos reports in MuniWireless.com about a possible Metropolitan Wi-Fi network for Manhattan. See above for the implications of widely-deployed Wi-Fi.
Verizon Wireless must have quietly hired the Energizer Bunny On the other hand... again, I gotta hand it to Verizon Wireless, they just keep grinding away at increasing their "Broadband" (CDMA, 1xEV-DO Revision A) coverage, week after week, month after month, a claimed $40B spent in such upgrades over the last seven years. This week's upgrade - Passaic County New Jersey. Now if they could just get a clue about offering reasonable Terms Of Service, and pricing, for those that would like to actually use the network as Stupid Network Internet Access and not so much walled garden services such as V CAST video.
Belated Attaboy to WiMax.com for implementing RSS For about a year, I think, I have harangued WiMAX.com's Founder and CEO Michael Wolleben whenever I saw him at conferences about WiMAX.com's paltry use of RSS. Looks like they've fixed that, and now offer RSS feeds for Spotlight, Blog, WiMAX Industry news, WiMAX FAQ, WiMAX Jobs, and Virtual WiMAX Seminars. I'll be especially interested to monitor the jobs and seminars feeds. I'm impressed that WiMAX.com has used Ning to set up a WiMAX social network that they call WiMAX360.
Thanks for the Kudos, Professor Press. Using blogs to support your CIS classes - you're my kind of prof!
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).
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