Nortel’s CTO weighs WiMax plans in this interview by ARNnet:
John Roese, who became chief technology officer at Nortel Networks in June, discusses WiMax wireless technology — and Nortel’s plans for it with both businesses and carriers.
How is Nortel fitting WiMax into its technology strategy?
The transition from 3G to 4G is interesting to us, because the 4G technologies, including WiMax, are based fundamentally on MIMO/OFDM technology. Nortel spent the last seven years pretty much inventing that technology. It’s a logical fit.
So how will Nortel’s WiMax affect the large business user?
Let’s say our vision of the 4G world pans out. We see 4G accelerated, and its cost per bit is one-tenth of what 3G can provide. It’s very economically feasible. The base station design, the spectral efficiency — all of those are very superior to 3G from a data services perspective. That’s pretty exciting.
So suddenly there’s this concept of high-performance, pervasive broadband. It changes the enterprise’s view of the broadband wireless network. So applications that heretofore have lived principally inside the enterprise in the LAN or have leaked out through a VPN suddenly become mobile applications.
Nortel can drive 4G because Nortel already has a multibillion [dollar] carrier business and a multibillion-dollar enterprise business, and we understand the two of them.
4G [WiMAX] is cheaper access, but also cheaper infrastructure, which can give you a broader coverage area. It’s Metcalfe’s Law. I’m excited about 4G and WiMax because it might drive more subscribers to a bigger network, bringing in more nonsubscribers.
Even Cisco is warming up to WiMAX, notes Broadband Reports, although the company still has a white paper on their website explaining why they won’t build WiMax base stations. A source told Unstrung, “the wireless, cable, and Linksys groups are all looking at WiMax.”
The cellular holdout is Ericsson (video). They think HSPA will deliver the goods for the vast majority of users. There are already 2 billion cellular subscribers. In five years, mobile WiMAX may have some 30 million subs — not a convincing market share, says the Ericsson CTO. The numbers appear to be on his side.
Ericsson rivals such as Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, Motorola, Nokia, newcomer Samsung, and even Sony Ericsson itself have joined the WiMAX club. The generation after HSPA (LTE) requires a forklift upgrade and is similar in many ways to Mobile WiMAX, utilizing OFDM.
The cellular industry is taking the offensive with HSPA+, which, they say, could offer similar performance to Mobile WiMAX using 2×5 MHz cellular bands. Mobile WiMAX proponents say their 1×10 MHz single channel (OFDMA) standard can top it with cheaper MIMO and Beam Forming.
CDMA carriers are currently upgrading to Rev A. But Rev B, which uses 5MHz wide channels, is considered merely a way station before the next big upgrade, called Ultramobile Broadband (UMB). It’s based on OFDMA, so it won’t be backward-compatible with the various versions of EV-DO and will require a lot more cash and spectrum by the cellular providers. “This is a whole new ball game — it’s a break point,” says Mike Roberts, an analyst at research firm Informa Telecoms & Media in London.
OFDM-based LTE could be the next step in the “4G” evolution for both GSM and CDMA operators. A new report from ABI Research predicts nearly 300,000 Long Term Evolution base stations will be deployed by 2014. LTE technology will come after Mobile WiMAX but before true “4G”, which is expected to deliver 100 Mbps — like 802.16m. The WiMAX 802.16m spec plans 1Gbps (fixed) and 100Mbps (mobile), by 2009.
Qualcomm, which already gets royality money from W-CDMA, appears to be promoting their own brand of evolution. Rather than jumping to HSPA and HSUPA evolution (via W-CDMA), they’re promoting something called Scaleable Bandwidth EVDO (pdf), for aggregating up to fifteen, 1.25 MHz carriers.
The WiMAX Forum says (pdf) that for the same data density and capacity, only half the basestations will be needed for Mobile WiMAX. In addition, basestations will be 1/10th the cost, use cheaper 2.5 GHz spectrum and commodity clients.
What cellular companies don’t have is spectrum. But 2.5 GHz auctions around the world may alter that equation. The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has proposed to exclude current 3G license holders from bidding for 2.5GHz licenses. On the other hand, Qualcomm has created a $135 million “anti-WiMAX” fund to invest in European small-to-medium-sized companies backing Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), reports TelecomWeb.
Meanwhile, despite opposition from many telecom companies, WiMAX will likely be approved as an IMT-2000 approved technology by end of this year. IMT-2000 is the global standard for 3G wireless communications as defined by the ITU.
Sprint’s WiMAX Cities will install Motorola gear in Chicago, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Minneapolis, Samsung gear in Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Washington D.C. and Nokia gear in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. Sprint will launch WiMAX in 19 cities by April 2008. Clearwire currently has 35 broadband wireless markets and counting.
Whether true “4G” will be upwardly compatible with *anything* remains to be seen.
Related DailyWireless articles include, Ericsson Pulls Plug on WiMAX, WiMAX 802.16m: 1Gbps, Mobile WiMAX - The Next Iridium?, Carriers Test “Real” 4G, Will Consumers Prefer WiMAX?, and Civil War in 4G.
