Does WiMAX TV Herald a New Era of WiMAX Applications?

NextWave's recent announcement of its new WiMAX-based mobile TV platform gains a new convert in Alcatel-Lucent.

NextWave released news of its new WiMAX TV platform on March 10th and Telecoms.com reports that it has already garnered two committed users in Huawei and now Alcatel-Lucent, which has announced that it intends to integrate this new NextWave technology into its 802.16e mobile WiMAX products.

The first step for NextWave and Alcatel-Lucent will be a series of interoperability tests of the technology, which is based in part on technology NextWave acquired with its purchase last year of IPWireless. NextWave stated that it was using a technology called macrodiversity to improve broadcast performance. The platform will support digital audio, interactive media and mobile TV multi-casting capabilities.

In practical terms the technology is designed to support up to 45 mobile TV channels in a 10 MHz channel and allow switching with a 2 second lag time. The platform incorporates a robust quality of service toolset that allows the carrier to dynamically control and allocate spectrum based on time of day, content allocation and whether or not the event is live among numerous other choices.

This announcement this week coupled with the recent announcement for a software developer's kit for the iPhone leads me to think that we may be finally entering the era of device-centric mobile broadband wireless---that being a time where users can begin to dictate the uses to which the technology is put and to help drive the adoption and deployment of services with demanding needs for applications. Mobile broadband wireless is maturing.

Tim Sanders,

TheFinalMile

Friday, March 14, 2008 in Applications  | Permalink |  Comments (2)