Nextel Moves Forward With New Broadband Wireless Trial

Wireless

from the trials-all-around dept

Nextel got a lot of attention last year when they announced their Raleigh-Durham broadband wireless trial, using FLASH-OFDM technology from Flarion. The offering was reasonably priced (no, seriously) and offered high speed, mobile broadband access all over the region. In fact, there were plenty of rumors that Nextel was all set to announce Flarion’s technology would be the basis of their next generation network. Then, along came the Sprint merger, along with Sprint’s own plans to offer EV-DO broadband wireless technology. Still, many people thought that the combined Sprint-Nextel (officially named: Sprint) might offer two levels of service: an EV-DO offering focused mainly on mobile phones, and another offering aimed at DSL replacement. The combined company would most likely have enough spectrum to handle both types of offerings, and given Nextel’s trials with Flarion, it seemed like it might be the technology they would use. Then, without much warning, Nextel shut down the Flarion trials, despite saying it had been a tremendous success. Almost everyone who tried it said they loved the service, and the new assumption was that Nextel figured they would just go with EV-DO once the merger was complete. Still, Nextel is famous for being incredibly thorough in trials that they do, and while the Flarion trial got all the publicity, they were still testing out plenty of other technologies in the lab (including EV-DO, pre-WiMax equipment, and UMTS-TDD). With that background, some may still find it surprising that, just ahead of the merger deal, Nextel is announcing trials with IP Wireless for UMTS-TDD technology in Washington DC. Unlike the Raleigh-Durham trials, this won’t be entirely open to the public — just to certain select Nextel customers. However, it’s a pretty big win for IP Wireless, who seems to be on a roll, lately.

UK Putting As Much Spectrum As Possible Into The Open Market

Wireless

from the ah,-spectrum-allocation dept

Spectrum allocation certainly sounds boring, but it’s one of the more important things that will impact plenty of technology over the next few years. All that WiFi you enjoy is, in part, the result of spectrum allocation policies that opened up a segment of spectrum for unlicensed use. The fact that Verizon couldn’t offer EV-DO wireless broadband in certain cities for a while was because of spectrum issues. The US has, for the most part, had a pretty dreadful spectrum allocation policy recently. Partly, this is because they’re hoping and praying that somehow Congress works out a way to get back a ton of spectrum (given away for free) that the broadcasters are sitting on for their transition from analog to digital TV. However, what the US needs is a real spectrum allocation policy, rather than its current plan whereby it dribbles out bits and pieces of spectrum and makes little changes along the way. Mostly, that’s created a big mess, so far (and a few lawsuits). That’s why it’s exciting to see the UK actually move ahead with a comprehensive and reasonable spectrum allocation policy — with a major change from most existing spectrum allocation policies around the world. While they’re not “freeing” up spectrum completely from licenses (as some would like to see), they are making spectrum a much more open market. We’ve discussed some of this before, but they’ve made their plans clearer. Basically, they’ll offer up a ton of spectrum, and then let the market decide what to do with it. This is a huge change from most places that designate that specific spectrum needs to be used for certain things (such as 3G services or television) and thereby limiting how useful it can really be. The one area where Ofcom in the UK made a concession was concerning 3G wireless technology — where, if they didn’t protect existing licensees who paid billions and billions for the rights, the various mobile operators would revolt. It may cause some problems initially, but the plan is a big step forward for the UK, and it would be great to see other countries, such as the US, follow.

Should There Be A Common Infrastructure For Mobile Technologies?

Wireless

from the questions-questions-questions dept

With all of the questions over line sharing recently, as well as yesterday’s Brand X ruling, people are once again looking to figure out what’s the best way to encourage and build next generation networks for broadband. While it looks like the US is going away from the idea of a common carrier route, some of the municipal efforts (such as in Philadelphia) represent interest in the other direction. Over in the UK, it appears that some are addressing the issue in a different way. The government sold various 3G spectrum licenses to five different companies, and over the past few years, almost all of them seemed to regret the incredibly high price they paid. There are still complaints about the hole this left the providers in, and the fact that the services offered still aren’t very good. So, some are wondering, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have everyone team up and build the network together, splitting the costs five-fold, and then allowing everyone to use it? There are obvious pros and cons to such plans. It does fit, somewhat, with the way telco and cable lines were allowed originally — noting that there’s a natural monopoly and it didn’t make sense for five different companies to string up five sets of lines to every house, just in case they offered service. Wireless sort of gets rid of that (at least the last mile aspect of it), but that doesn’t mean the rationale doesn’t make some amount of sense. The question, really, is whether or not it should be government regulated so that no one else can offer service, or if these companies simply come to an agreement together to pool their resources in order to build a better network. Of course, many companies don’t want to do that, believing that they’ll be able to differentiate themselves on the network itself. However, that only makes sense when the networks are all bad. If the technology really works, there should be much differentiation in the network, but in the services on top of the network.

More WiMax Impatience From Vendors

Wireless

As everyone has been waiting and waiting and waiting (and, oh yeah, waiting) for real WiMax certification testing to begin, the various vendors in the space have been getting antsy. Last March, a group of them got together to do some testing on their own, and now Aperto Networks says that it couldn’t be bothered to wait, and has run its own interoperability testing for WiMAX based on both Intel’s and Fujitsu’s chipsets. Get the feeling they want to get on with it already?

Filed Under: wimax

Verizon Wireless Launches More EV-DO Regions

Wireless

Last week, Mike covered the launch of Verizon EV-DO in Seattle, Portland, Richmond, and San Antonio, this week, it’s the San Francisco Bay Area, NYC, and the Jersey Shore that will be able to get high-speed cellular Internet. EV-DO has speeds of 400 – 700 Kbps in the real world, allows for high-speed laptop work, or mobile video to phones. While VZW has traditionally used a staggered roll-out for its networks and services, rival SprintPCS has traditionally favored synchronous national roll-outs, promising 39 regions to launch sometime around now. But it looks to me like Verizon’s strategy will get it much more press, and an earlier stab at the market (while Sprint gets the traditional benefits of a fast-follower: lower costs, less risk.) Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless’ online EV-DO coverage map seems to understate their locations – at least as of today.

Filed Under: 3g

Now It's Sendo That's Up For Sale

Wireless

Sendo became the center of attention in the handset world a few years ago for being the first firm to agree to build a Microsoft phone and then being the first firm to drop Microsoft as a phone OS partner followed up by a fun lawsuit including all sorts of allegations about how Microsoft basically used Sendo and then passed confidential info on to other handset makers. The two firms eventually settled and Sendo continued to work on other handsets. However, it appears that the company is now struggling and has put itself up for sale. Following so soon on Siemens selling (uh, paying Benq to take) its handset division, it shows some of the difficulties some handset manufacturers are facing.

Librarires Increasingly Offering WiFi

Wireless

It’s looking like libraries are increasingly the place to go for free WiFi. A new study points out that nearly all public libraries in the US now offer free internet access while 18% have WiFi, and plenty more expect to add WiFi in the next year or so. This isn’t that surprising at all, but it seems that people often forget that they can get their free WiFi fix from the local library (we hear they have books too!).

Filed Under: wi-fi, wifi

Verizon Wireless Keeps Up The EVDO Expansion

Wireless

Over the past few weeks, the rumor levels have been increasing on both an expanded EV-DO offering from Verizon Wireless and the initial launch of Sprint’s EV-DO offering. There are plenty of reports “out in the field” where people have spotted both in action — and announcements have been rumored “any day now” for about a month. While it’s likely Sprint will get the big splash when it debuts it’s network, it seems like Verizon Wireless is trying to steal some of the thunder by dribbling out news of EV-DO expansion every other day or so. A couple days ago, it was Richmond, Virginia. A few days before that it was San Antonio, Texas. Now it’s the Northwest, with both Seattle and Portland launching. You get the feeling they’re just waiting for Sprint to make a move, and the whole list of newly expanded cities will come pouring out even faster. Of course, what would be a lot more interesting is something like a price reduction on the service to lower it from the mythical $80 level that the operators are so in love with (yes, understandably, to avoid overloading capacity on the new networks too quickly — but at some point it needs to start dropping). Getting Seattle up and running is a big step, because it was a major high tech hub where Verizon Wireless didn’t have the necessary spectrum. However, they snapped it up in one of their many spectrum buying sprees earlier this year — and they clearly put it to work fairly quickly.

Filed Under: 3g

Smarter Ringtones For Smarter Phones?

Wireless

As everyone over the age of 30 tries to understand the success of the ringtone market, some are realizing that there are plenty of people out there who just don’t want to have some random pop song play when their phone rings — but might find something else interesting. That, it seems, is the thinking behind Avaya Labs’ plan to create “intelligent ringtones” that tell you who is calling, and maybe some additional information, such as that they’ve tried calling you three times without reaching you. This is raising some immediate skepticism from those who point out that this has little to do with what makes people by ringtones — but perhaps that’s the point. These more intelligent ringtones seem more likely to be targeted at the “non-ringtone” demographic. While the initial idea is a bit weak (I can see who’s calling on the display, can’t I?), adding additional intelligence to the ringtone can certainly make some sense in creating more useful information output.

Flarion Gets A Win In Finland

Wireless

The Government of Finland issued a national spectrum license at 450MHz to an operator who will use Flash OFDM technology from Flarion. The license was issued to Digita Oy, and will require Digita to operate as a “carrier’s carrier”, which means they will operate the network, but the network can be resold by other service providers. Using a carrier’s carrier model will share the infrastructure costs among participating resellers. Using the 450MHz band ensures a very long range for each base station, when combined with Flarion’s good BWA technology should provide a proven mobile and rural broadband solution. The plan is to offer data services at first, but Flarion’s technology is know for low latency and excellent handoff characteristics, making it ideal for VoIP. While Flash OFDM technology has been proven in trials, the economics of a commercialized network have not yet been proven. Also, the technology is proprietary, which has been an impediment to carrier acceptance. Once again, as the press and analyst hub-bub continues to swirl around WiMAX, other technologies which are currently available are eating away at the addressable market.