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WiMAX Inside
At times throughout the evolution of the personal computer industry, we will see natural additions or extensions to existing computing platforms. Laptops, as well as quickly-emerging netbook platforms, are the result of many innovations in the personal computer business.
Wireless Broadband Perspectives - WiMAX.com Weekly Series Sponsored By: For the next few months, WiMAX.com and Cisco will be featuring weekly perspectives from leading thought leaders in the WiMAX & wireless broadband industry. This week Gordon Graylish, Intel's Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group & Deputy General Manager for EMEA illustrates how user's demands for ubiquitous, high-performance internet connectivity will drive demand for WiMAX services relative to current cellular offerings. |
From the Compaq Portable to the first laptops, to ubiquitous WiFi and ramping 3G
add-in card adoption, the "Internet speed" evolution of the portable computer
has left us with a highly-personalized productivity and communications tool.
Much like cell phones, many of us can still remember a time when "I lived
without a laptop." Today, I would gather that virtually everyone reading this
article has a laptop, and if you don't, you want one. Those of us using
our laptops daily then find ourselves intrigued as designs become thinner,
lighter, and faster, all while battery life increases. How about these
exciting new netbooks? While lower in performance, they have a fun, smaller form
factor and are great for casual Internet consumptions tasks like browsing, email
and messaging. Whether laptop or netbook, it is universally acknowledged
that these devices consume exponentially more data than smartphones and
traditional mobile clients, and here in lies the rub…
Regardless, the one thing that most all of us agree on is that communication and
mobility are key components. I personally want the same open high-speed
Internet that I have at home on the go. From a user's view, I have yet to
find someone that requests limited or metered Internet access - a set of
applications pre-selected by a service provider or OEM. It's simple.
Users want their own personal Internet, not someone else's idea of a good sales
bundle. From a business perspective, delivering on the promise of the
wide-open "wild west Internet" has some challenges. Hotspots are great for
hopping between network connections. Why not add a high-speed wireless,
wide-area capability as a low-cost option for the laptop and netbook platforms?
Enter Intel WiFi/WiMAX embedded modules and WiMAX service providers.
At Intel, our "big goal" is a ubiquitous Internet. 3G and HSPA have their
uses today but don't deliver effectively (or profitably) on the ubiquitous
Internet. In the end we don't approach this religiously, but WiMAX is the
only solution available today and near term that can clearly deliver high
capacity, multi-megabit performance, low cost data and devices today.
As with any new technology deployment, the consumer experiencing the mobile
multi-megabit Internet WiMAX delivers will spur both demand and uptake.
All key components are coming into place to enable this next-level computing and
communications: price leading module cost, unparalleled speed, radically better
latency (critical for online games) and unbridled mobile access to the greatest
invention of the information age - the Internet. Intel's first- generation
embedded WiFi/WiMAX products are available at only a moderate price premium over
our WiFi only modules, already well below the cost of HSPA modules that have had
three to four years of cost reduction applied to them. Second-generation
modules currently in development will add additional frequency band support,
performance optimizations, and features.
Why is this important? First let's look at a few of the counter arguments.
Some may say "We will build high-speed wireless broadband when the people are
ready for it." What this translates to is: "I have a business model that I need
to protect." The reality is that current wireless business models are reaching
saturation levels in mature markets. Cell phone adoption exceeds 100% in
many economies and voice revenues are seeing price erosion. Wireless data
and the services around it is the growth opportunity. While handset data
represents a growth opportunity, laptops and netbooks present an estimated 140
million unit virtually untapped market segment for mobile operators.*
After several years in development, 2008 was the year WiMAX became a global
reality. In both emerging markets and mature countries, companies and
governments are deploying 4G WiMAX networks to help bridge the digital divide
and bring affordable, super-fast mobile broadband to their citizens. As
countries look to accelerate broadband in 2009 to address economic recovery,
WiMAX is ready. On the carrier side, WorldMax continues to innovate with
Mobile WiMAX at 3.5GHz and is the first to bring citywide mobile WiMAX to
Europe. For example, WorldMax installed over 110 Base Stations in two
months providing total coverage for the city of Amsterdam, where users can roam
throughout the city on USB dongles and PC cards. Yota in Russia also just
launched their WiMAX network with embedded WiMAX notebooks and/or netbooks from
Acer, Asus, Lenovo, MSI, Samsung, and Toshiba.
On the device front, leading global PC OEMs including Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu,
Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung and Toshiba are delivering laptops today with Intel®
WiMAX/WiFi embedded modules to take advantage of this untapped segment. We
expect to see 100 models as we enter 2010. In addition, several OEMs plan
to offer Intel Atom™-based netbook models with embedded WiMAX that will also
support the WiMAX networks in 2009. The Acer AspireOne is the first and
available today.
Laptops and netbooks equate to new service activations, and therefore revenue
opportunities for service providers. But the open Internet model on a
laptop requires multi-megabit bandwidth that appears with cellular providers to
be unprofitable or perhaps not possible to provide. In markets that have
aggressively tried to provide competitive primary broadband with cellular
technologies, the operator communities have created a vicious cycle of
oversubscription and under capacity. The difficulty or opportunity,
depending on your perspective, is that people want this unbridled Internet
today, not in several years and they want it with the cost economics of WiMAX.
In summary, consumers have shown they have an insatiable demand for both
mobility and bandwidth. Current cellular networks, while extremely capable
for cell phone coverage, have limited capability to provide wireless data to
laptops and netbooks. Users demand unbridled mobile access to the same
Internet they already use daily. Embedded laptops and netbooks represent a
relatively untapped opportunity for service providers with WiMAX being the most
capable, cost effective, performance solution to enable the mobile, unbridled
Internet.
Gordon Graylish, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group
Deputy General Manager, EMEA, Intel Corporation
Gordon Graylish is vice president of Intel EMEA and deputy general manager for
the region. Graylish's expertise includes the areas of technological
development, the disruptive impact of technology and the effect these have on
corporate strategies and society. In 1998, Graylish became director of
Intel Architecture marketing for EMEA based in the UK, responsible for
developing and executing strategic marketing plans. In 2004, he
transitioned to directing Intel's marketing and technical resources in EMEA
before moving to his current role.
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