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June 18, 2008

Commercial WiMax Launches in September in Baltimore

By Glenn Fleishman

Sprint’s CEO announces the commercial launch at trade show: Dan Hesse said that Sprint’s WiMax offering will first launch in Baltimore, followed “later” (no time given) in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Apparently, no details on pricing, production speeds, and so forth. In testing, 2 to 4 Mbps downstream speeds were used.

Posted by Glennf at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2008

2.5 GHz Gets Official: Certified WiMax Products Appear

By Glenn Fleishman

In an important move for costs eventually moving lower for Clearwire/Sprint, the WiMax Forum has certified its first 2.5 GHz products: The firms include all that putative joint venture’s partners: Intel, Motorola, Samsung, and Zyxel, as well as Airspan, Alvarion, Beceem, and Sequans, some of which may also supply gear. Nortel recently shifted its WiMax strategy to lean on Alvarion’s research and development after not getting contracts to be a main supplier to Sprint or Clearwire. The 3.5 GHz certification could start late this year; those frequencies will be in wide use outside the US. Certification is a tricky thing in the WiMax world because it was designed in waves, and it isn’t explained anywhere on the WiMax Forum site that I can find, nor outside of a vendor comment that this is Wave 2, is it mentioned in this press release. Each wave includes a set of concepts and device types. Monica Paolini, a wireless analyst and consultant who has worked for the WiMax Forum, spelled this out nearly three years ago for Wi-Fi Planet.

Posted by Glennf at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2008

Nortel Moves to LTE, Away from WiMax

By Glenn Fleishman

Nortel was trumpeting its WiMax prowess last year: But they missed out on major contracts in the U.S., and so are shifting their focus to Long Term Evolution (LTE), the path for GSM operators (and Verizon) to fourth-generation networks. Three of the four major U.S. carriers are committed to LTE; Sprint is the lone WiMax holdout. Intel’s wireless chief made comments recently about pushing LTE and WiMax into a converged, compatible format, too. Nortel will partner with WiMax pioneer Alvarion to continue its WiMax work, but obviously is leaning on them, and putting its research and development money into LTE.

Posted by Glennf at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

June 3, 2008

Intel Calls for WiMax, LTE Convergence

By Glenn Fleishman

Intel’s sales and marketing head calls for unified WiMax, LTE for 4G: Sean Maloney has been a driving force behind WiMax, and he makes a good point. With Qualcomm-driven standards not in the running for U.S. and European cell data evolution—nor in many other parts of the world—there’s not much of a patent or single-company-owned technology debate here. Really, it’s a question about evolution and interoperability. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are committed to LTE; Sprint and Clearwire to WiMax. WiMax technology is available today; LTE could be in the 2010-2012 timeframe for real deployments. WiMax can push 10 to 20 Mbps or more depending on spectrum allocation and other issues; LTE is estimated to offer 50 to 100 Mbps downstream. Maloney said 80 percent of the two technologies were the same and Motorola says it will reuse 85 percent of what was developed for WiMax in its LTE design. Sounds very rational. With Intel’s backing, carriers might go for it, because it could mean having every laptop shipped already containing an LTE receiver.

Posted by Glennf at 11:45 AM | Comments (0)