Back when Sprint joined other mobile carriers in issuing a 5 GB limit on its EVDO connection, I was among those who noted that it was disappointing that the company sold me an "unlimited" service, and then changed the terms on me unilaterally. It also changed the way I used my EVDO card, making it significantly less useful and valuable for me. I don't want to be thinking about how much data I'm using (and it was especially difficult without a detailed system of tracking how much data you were using). I remember once, while traveling, I accidentally left the EVDO connection running over night, and got worried that Sprint might cut me off. It's just not worth it, and I've actually been thinking about dumping Sprint once my contract is up.

Apparently, I wasn't alone in thinking this and Sprint has noticed. With its new WiMax network, it has stayed away from talking about any caps, and has now admitted that the reaction to the EVDO caps is part of the reason why. They're afraid that, just as they're trying to convince people to use the WiMax network, they'll get scared off by caps. The problem, of course, is that these mobile broadband providers are fighting against themselves on these things. They want to convince the world that these networks are useful -- and to do that, you have to show all the cool things that you can do with them. But, if they haven't really invested enough in the networks, they can actually run into some congestion problems, and so they can't encourage you to use them too much. Hopefully, the investment into WiMax (or, potentially moving on to LTE) will mean that such congestion problems are mostly a thing of the past, and that it's not worth implementing caps.

That said, Sprint's admission of how people responded to the EVDO caps should be a clear warning to ISPs that keep trying to implement broadband caps or metered broadband. Doing so imposes additional costs that you might not have considered, such as the mental transaction costs your users face in determining if it's even worth using your network. Of course, ISPs should know this already. We already have a detailed case study in that AOL only really took off after it switched from hourly billing to an unlimited flat-rate. Why some ISPs want to go back to make their product less valuable is beyond me.

How quickly people forget. With the FCC's announcement about support for net neutrality legislation the PR and lobbying machines of the major telco and cable providers have cranked up, putting out all sorts of fear mongering letters and reports about the damage such a law will do. There was one interesting exception. Some noticed that wireless broadband provider Clearwire appeared to support the FCC's position (though, I'd argue that the statement's wording is a bit vague). While the article at Moconews suggests this "isn't surprising," I'm wondering how everyone seems to have forgotten that Clearwire, in the past, was one of the most aggressive broadband providers to support a non neutral network. A few years back, it was blocking VoIP and streaming media and proudly promised to block any type of traffic or application it didn't like. It also tried to get VoIP providers to get "certified" before promising they could work on Clearwire's network. Of course, plenty can change in a few years, but it's quite noteworthy that Clearwire may have changed its tune on net neutrality entirely.

It's becoming such that news about another patent battle surrounding a new standard is barely newsworthy -- especially in the wireless space. Name the standard, and we can probably find someone claiming patents on it. There are still ongoing patent battles surrounding both WiFi and WiMax. The latest is apparently surrounding LTE, the choice of many mobile providers for their 4G next generation wireless. A company named ADC is claiming that LTE violates its patents and is now asking for royalties. As per usual, the company claiming patents over the technology just so happens to show up after a bunch of folks have committed to the technology. Funny how that works.

For years and years we used to make fun of the press and analysts for either saying that WiMax existed when it did not or for predicting huge uptake before the tech was even ready. Plenty of companies offered wireless broadband, but it was not WiMax, no matter what they (or the press) called it. Back in 2003, we even made a pretty clear prediction: WiMax would not be ready for prime time until 2008, going against plenty of analysts who insisted it would be the big thing in 2004. And 2005. And 2006. And 2007. So, it's nice to see Sprint squeeze in the launch of its WiMax Xohm service before the end of 2008, and make our prediction accurate. Of course, those analysts who predicted huge WiMax success stories in 2004 have moved on and have already declared WiMax dead, and now LTE is the huge success story to watch out for. Let's wait and see on that one as well. There's just something about wireless technologies that make the press and analysts assume that what is being talked about at the tech level will take the world by storm immediately. These things take time.

There are some folks who believe that the solution to patent problems is to just have everyone who claims to have a patent on a certain technology throw it into a "patent pool" and then those who use the technology pay up a fee that gets divided up among pool members. It sounds nice, but in practice, it almost never works. Setting up a patent pool actually encourages the wrong behavior: it encourages plenty of other patent holders to claim they deserve to be a part of the pool, and if they're not included, they start suing like crazy. Also, it encourages companies to try to get any kind of patent that might get them included in a pool, leading to all sorts of crazy claims. It's the exact opposite of the type of behavior that should be encouraged.

So, don't read too much into the fact that a bunch of companies in the WiMax space have agreed to put together a patent pool under the amusingly inaccurately named "Open Patent Alliance." The companies involved, Cisco, Intel, Samsung, Sprint, Alcatel-Lucent, and Clearwire are all betting big on WiMax deployments, so they know it's in their best interest to get the licensing out of the way. But you'll notice that there are a lot of companies missing -- including Wi-LAN who has been claiming that it owns all the key patents over WiMax technology for years. The patent pool sounds nice, but it's certainly not going to diminish the number of patent lawsuits that arise over WiMax technology. If anything, it's just going to make all those other companies even angrier.

For years and years and years we've been hearing about companies that claim to have taken WiFi and been able to turn it into a wide-area technology. Yet, every time, the reality is a lot less appealing. The technology rarely works, except under specific ideal conditions. So forgive us for being skeptical of yet another company claiming that its special take on WiFi can take on WiMAX. It's even come up with the name MaxFi that's almost certain to have the WiMAX folks checking with their trademark lawyers. While it's nice to see some folks trying to do more with the technology, given the long trail littered with failed plans for wide-area WiFi, let's consider this one to be yet another story that makes a nice headline and little else.

In certain markets, Sprint has always used affiliates to sell its service, rather than building out its own efforts. Some of those affiliate relationships caused problems back in 2004/2005 when Sprint merged with Nextel -- as Nextel's service existed in some of those markets, potentially "competing" with the Sprint affiliates who had agreements that Sprint would not compete directly. So, with the new WiMax joint venture with Clearwire, Sprint knew that the big affiliate iPCS would be upset. In fact, last week, Sprint sued iPCS in Delaware seeking a declaratory judgment that the new joint venture did not break their agreement with iPCS. That lawsuit appears to have been filed slightly before iPCS filed its own lawsuit in Illinois against Sprint. Chances are the two suits will be combined in some manner, but it's yet another hurdle that Sprint needs to clear before it can get this new WiMax offering off the ground. Sprint may have a decent claim here -- as the agreement with iPCS is focused only on 1.9GHz spectrum, whereas the WiMax network is on 2.5GHz spectrum. Either way, it seems like these affiliate relationships may be a lot more pain than they're worth.

A bunch of the worst kept secrets in the wireless broadband world have finally come together. No one ever really believed that Sprint and Clearwire would fully break off their WiMax agreement. It simply made too much sense for them to get back together. At the same time, everyone also knew that Comcast and Time Warner were talking to Sprint to help fund WiMax in order to get a wireless pipe with which to compete with the telcos. And... oh yeah, given how much money Intel had pumped into WiMax to make everyone think it just had to be the next generation wireless system, there was no way it was going to let Sprint and Clearwire's WiMax plans collapse. Finally, toss in the fact that Google was known to be interested in Sprint's WiMax plans, and it's not hard to figure out what is actually happening...

Yes, indeed, Intel, Google, Comcast and Time Warner are teaming up to pump $3.2 billion into a joint venture that would merge Sprint and Clearwire's WiMax operations under the Clearwire brand name. This is certainly no surprise given all the earlier stories, but given how many problems have surrounded WiMax as well as earlier attempts for the cable companies to offer wireless services, don't expect this new venture to go smoothly right from the beginning. That doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do. Most of the companies involved didn't really have much of a choice but to do this. Of course, in all this mess, Sprint and Clearwire squandered a portion of the lead they held over AT&T and Verizon. While it will still take a while for AT&T and Verizon to get LTE plans into motion, all this futzing by Sprint and Clearwire took away some of the huge lead it should have had.

It wasn't all Singapore Slinging (of mud) at WiMAX Forum Asia Congress 2008. There was some real progress to mention coming out of the show last week. The Forum has announced the certification of the first 8 products that are fully mobile WiMAX compliant, and it's been a long time coming. This is good news for network providers that have been counting on high-scale-economies for standards-based kit, with which they can deploy their networks. The WiMAX Forum says that 2.5GHz kit will likely be certified later this year. 2.5GHz is of particular interest to Sprint Xohm, which is currently working with non-certified gear.

And what were all the prior announcements that WiMAX certification was available? Well, this 2005 announcement was regarding fixed WiMAX, and this 2006 announcement was really about a suite for equipment makers to test their products in development. But that's behind us, there is now real Mobile WiMAX equipment available. Finally.

But, if certified mobile WiMAX gear is only available as of this week, what were all those other "mobile WiMAX" network announcements you've been hearing for years? Turns out many of them were what boosters dubbed "pre-WiMAX". But pre-WiMAX turns out to be defined as "not really WiMAX at all but I'm eager to get on the bandwagon." This massive reality gap between pre-WiMAX and standards-based WiMAX is illustrated by a recent story in which Clearwire Chief Strategy Officer Scott Richardson says "...Clearwire may use dual-mode devices to support both technologies [pre-WiMAX and WiMAX] and may overlay WiMAX equipment on its existing markets."

Dual-mode equipment and overlays? To manage an upgrade from "pre-WiMAX" equipment to "WiMAX" equipment? What he's really saying is that the older Nextnet-made gear is simply NOT compatible with WiMAX (i.e., it's NOT WiMAX and never was), and it eventually needs to be forklift-upgraded out. If this stuff was really just "pre-," then it should have taken no more than a software upgrade and a tweak or two to make it standard WiMAX (much like 54G was pre-G, or pre-n was basically = n WiFi). It's funny that the WiMAX bandwagon was so attractive, that companies that were absolutely not using WiMAX felt the need to call their solution WiMAX. Apparently it brought more press coverage, more public enthusiasm, and easier access to capital. But, it didn't mean they were actually offering WiMAX.

Tempers flared at the WiMAX show in Singapore last week when the WiMAX Forum apparently moved to suppress a report issued by one of their media sponsors, Telecoms Korea. The Telecoms Korea report, prepared with the expectation of distribution at the event, apparently included a case study regarding KT's deployment of WiBRO in South Korea, including relevant facts about the rocky start the service has had. Well, apparently "rocky start" isn't on the agenda at the WiMAX Congress, since the Forum blocked distribution of the report. Telecoms Korea is accusing KT of being behind the cover-up, and it is specifically singling out Ron Resnick, the Intel executive who currently sits as President and Chairman of the WiMAX Forum as being the ax-man. The publication is furious at the alleged censorship, and says it degraded to a shouting match at the Congress with Resnick saying, "Get out of here, now!" several times. That's too bad, because as an occasional subscriber to Telecoms Korea, I have seen that their editorial position on WiBRO has been one part national pride mixed with one part realism. If they have had any bias, it has been a hope to see WiBRO succeed. The publication argues that by turning a blind eye to the simple realities of KT's difficult launch, the WiMAX community is setting itself up for repeat disappointment rather than being able to learn from it.