Blog entries in catagory: Applications
Interview with Sriram Viswanathan, General Manger for WiMAX at Intel
We recently sat down with Sriram Viswanathan, General Manger for the WiMAX Program office at Intel to discuss WiMAX, the upcoming Intel roadmap for 2008 and the overall state of the industry.
Driven by the explosive growth of mobile phones and increased demand for new social networks and other personal internet applications, the broadband penetration model has changed dramatically.
"We are clearly seeing a fundamental shift in our business," says Viswanathan. "There was a time when we were pushing one computer per home. When Andy Grove stood up at Comdex 15 years ago, the key message was a billion computers for a billion homes. Now people are really associating computing with the individual - personal broadband."
It is not surprising then that global shipments of laptops are expected to surpass desktops in the near future. "We are seeing in our business where the mix of laptops is growing dramatically," says Viswanathan. "It would not be unrealistic to expect in the next 3-4 years to see north of 300M notebooks per year. In all geographical areas, the laptop is expected to be the dominant form factor."
This growth is also being fueled by new, cheaper and smaller form-factor devices such as those announced by Asus and others at CES earlier this year. "Computing is getting re-defined with everyone wanting individual form-factor devices that they can take the internet with them," says Viswanathan. "The internet is becoming more personal."
Clearly a key driver in the growth of these devices has been the ubiquitous availability of multi-megabit broadband connections. It's difficult now to imagine traveling and not being able to find Wi-Fi at an airport, hotel or other hotspot. But what happens when you are out of the limited range of the Wi-Fi router? Until now, the only choice has been one of the slower 3G data-rate options offered by cellular carriers.
"Our belief is that the key driver of these mobile platforms is the type of broadband connections that exist," says Viswanathan. "If you look at all the categories, the data rich applications are the ones that are driving the most usage."
If fact, a recent posting on TechCrunch reported that the data usage of the iPhone in the US is driving 70% of all data usage on all these types networks. "If you believe that video is what is driving the data usage on the internet and the Iphone is an indication of what is to come, you have to believe that you need a better network," says Viswanathan. "The current infrastructure is just not capable of delivering this experience. WiMAX will deliver a minimum of 3x performance over the existing 3G technologies."
WiMAX, however, is not without its detractors. Some in the industry have criticized WiMAX for taking longer to develop and ultimately to be of little use with other upcoming technologies such as LTE -- the effort to upgrade the UMTS standard to a 4G standard. Although the LTE standard is yet to be defined, it is believed that it will share many of the same characteristics with WiMAX.
"WiMAX today is what LTE will be 3-4 years from now," says Viswanathan. From a performance standpoint, there is not much difference. But the reality of the business case is about when it is available and WiMAX is available today. As with any new technology, there is a 3 year window from when the standards get establish to when commercial networks launch. This is consistent with when the mobile WiMAX standard (802.16e) which was established in 2005 and we are now seeing commercial networks being deployed in 2008."
Regardless of the technology used, a dominant factor in the success of any wireless network is the access to spectrum. Much has been written about the recent 700Mhz auction in the US in which $15B of the $19B was won by Verizon and AT&T.
"The 700Mhz could not have happened at a better time because it brings to focus all the issues that WiMAX stands for - openness, flat IP network that brings the internet together," says Viswanathan. "If you study the available spectrum that exists across all the carriers in the US, Sprint and Clearwire together have in excess of 130Mhz of 2.5Ghz spectrum. AT&T and Verizon's spectrum positions together, even if you include their AWS positions and 1.9 and 800Mhz, will be less than 50% of the free spectrum that is owned by Sprint & Clearwire."
"Even more profound is that their spectrum is populated with existing users," says Viswanathan. So if you want to deliver broadband, you don't have free spectrum. If you want to use it, you have to acquire or move existing users to a different band. In the end, the delivery of mobile broadband in the US is going to be fought and won based on spectrum positions."
As the networks begin to be built out, Intel has been busy getting ready to launch several platforms by mid-year that will feature WiMAX capabilities. Montevina, the code name for the next generation platform for notebooks, will be branded Centrino 2 and will feature the new Intel Core 2 Duo 45nm processor, a chipset and a wireless component, which includes an optional integrated Wi-Fi/WiMAX module.
Other platforms include Menlow which is designed for smaller, form factor devices known as MIDs (mobile internet devices) that will allow you to take the "internet in your pocket."
"Both of these categories will be WiMAX ready," says Viswanathan. "Connectivity will be market by market, but these devices will be WiMAX ready, much like what we did with Wi-Fi on the Centrino platform."
If the adoption of Wi-Fi over the past few years is any guide, then WiMAX should do very well. "Just as Wi-Fi attach rates improved over a 2-year period, we expect WiMAX to do the same," says Viswanathan. "We are actually putting Wi-Fi and WiMAX in a single module from a space perspective. You will use Wi-Fi and then use WiMAX as is comes available. But over time, as WiMAX becomes available you will be able to use that as your primary network."
Sriram Viswanathan
Vice President, Intel Capital
Director, Mobility Sector
General Manager, WiMAX Program Office
INTEL CORPORATION
Sriram Viswanathan is managing director of Intel Capital and general manager of the WiMAX program office. As the head of the mobility sector, Viswanathan is responsible for investments on a worldwide basis in the mobile area. He is also responsible for the mobile content and services sector, mobile communications sector and mobile platforms sector. In January 2007 he also assumed responsibility for leading Intel's WiMAX efforts, acting as the corporate focal point for our customers and business partners in this strategic effort for Intel.
_____
tags:
The Launch of MXtv & The decline of the land-line
Since the introduction of the mobile phone, the land-line telephone has slowing become an endangered species.
The addicting Blackberry is quickly settling itself as “man’s best friend.” As life moves faster, we are predisposed to demand services and products that satisfy our on-the-go attitude.
In line with such a demand, NextWave Wireless, Inc has just recently launched MXtv. Wireless Design and Development Asia describes MXtv as:
“a breakthrough mobile multicast and broadcast technology that enables WiMAX operators to deliver a broad range of rich and personalized multimedia services including mobile TV, interactive media services, and digital audio without having to invest in new spectrum or additional radio access network equipment… With the unique ability to interleave broadcast content with voice and data content in each user transmission, MXtv enables WiMAX network operators to maximize service revenues by allowing them to dynamically optimize the mix of voice, data, and broadcast services on each RF carrier based on user demand, service pricing and advertising revenue. Furthermore, over 300 high fidelity radio broadcast channels or any combination of mobile TV, personalized radio, voice and data services can be offered in the same 10 MHz of spectrum”.
Having already affected the entertainment and media industry, it will be interesting to see how advertising will adapt to the speedy growth of mobile technology. With the introduction of MXtv, WiMAX has the potential to enable video delivery and thus commercials/video advertisements. Consumer’s ability to receive mobile TV and personalized radio on their mobile devices can improve the personalization or customization of entertainment and media directed toward individual users. While the ability to tailor advertisements and the reach of those advertisements may at first thought seem like a dream come true. The actual implementation of such a dream will be a challenge for advertisers and marketers to do successfully. As the customer population becomes more and more segmented by the personalization of media, advertising becomes more complicated. Still, it is interesting to explore the potential impact of WiMAX will have outside of the technology industry.
Ari Zoldan
_____
tags:
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.
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,
_____
tags:
Are Devices Starting to Drive the Mobile Broadband Equation?
News of the release of a software developer's kit for the iPhone prompts speculation about the future role of devices in driving mobile broadband wireless.
An article in the MIT Technology Review reports on the release of a third party software developer's kit for the iPhone by Apple. Not withstanding the fact that the iPhone, at least in the US, is solely the province of GSM based AT&T wireless, the new developer's kit for this device renews speculation as to whether or not we have finally reached the point where devices and device applications can begin driving the mobile broadband wireless industry.
AT&T has previously said it was surprised by the amount of bandwidth, and in particular, video bandwidth that iPhone users consumed. Certainly the iPhone has received kudos for its easy to use interface. Can it be that the public simply needed an application interface simple and clean enough to allow it to do more? An argument can clearly be made that this is so. And this raises the question of how important devices will be to the success of WiMAX mobile deployments as well.
Clearly this new SDK will allow third party developers to build solid additional software applications for the iPhone, some of which may include assessing business e-mail networks to novel ways to incorporate gesture-based applications using the iPhone's built in accelerometer.
One company plans a deluxe "to-do" list that ties camera photos to tasks or events. And the capability to clear the phone of all data remotely if it is lost or stolen is a first to my knowledge.
The era of all-IP based handsets and broadband wireless access is coming---or is it here already?
Tim Sanders
_____
tags:
The Maverick Spirit of Broadband Wireless Innovation is Still Alive
A clever Australian gentleman utilizes amateur radio and the Internet to connect people in Australia's remote outback.
Australia's James Cameron is using some not-so-new amateur radio technology and the Internet to link people in Australia's remote Outback where only one-tenth of Australia's population resides. The technology called the Internet Radio Linking project is actually older technology being put to a new use. The technology allows a person to pick up their amateur radio, dial a number and be connected via the Internet for no cost.
Mr. Cameron has turned his expertise more recently to testing the wireless range of laptops built by the $100 One Laptop per Child project. Finding that the remote bush country was an ideal laboratory of hot, dry conditions where he could quietly test the laptops, Cameron ascertained that the range was about 1.6 Km or just about a mile.
"I can put them up trees and test how far they go. Especially because there's not much radio noise around here, being on a farm in the outback, I'm a long way from any other radio source," said Cameron.
The Laptops operate off of a form of wireless mesh designed to allow the laptops to interconnect using multiple connection paths to extend the range of all radios on the system.
Tim Sanders,
TheFinalMile
_____
tags:
WiMAX beats time-to-market challenges for sporting event broadband
On-Communications UK hones market niche with broadband access services for festivals and stadiums.
Visitors to this month's World Cycling Championships at the Manchester Velodrome will be able to access high-speed wireless internet access (Wi-Fi) through a special 'Hot Zone' covering the entire sporting arena. The Wi-Fi coverage, provided by On-Communications and BT Openzone, will enable teams, their supporters and attending media to stay connected to email, the web and their company network.
All velodrome data and Wi-Fi traffic will be routed to the Internet via On-Communications Fixed Wireless Access service. The service uses Airspan 802.16-2004 radios operating in the light-licensed 5.8 GHz frequency band. The addition of private and public Wi-Fi access throughout the entire velodrome is one of the first permanent arena or stadium installations in the UK. The guaranteed performance service features a 'burst' capability to provide extra bandwidth during peak periods at the end of heats and races as international journalists rush to file reports and photographs.
Fixed wireless access creates temporary or permanent network access in support of festivals, tournaments, and events where people congregate. On-Communications recently deployed WiMAX connectivity to the Manchester Evening News Arena, one of Europe's largest indoor arenas and recently voted 'The Most Popular Entertainment Venue on the Planet'. Two temporary pools filled with two million liters of water will be created in the arena for the 9th FINA World Swimming Championships in April. "Stadiums have a consistent requirement for broadband," notes Ian Roberts, CEO of On-Communications. "Sporting events provide good additional business opportunities when they come into your network coverage area." The WiMAX technologies are equally well-suited to bring Wi-Fi access to time-based events, such as pop concerts at London's historic Hyde Park.
The public Wi-Fi hot zones provide venue-wide coverage across all public areas, conference and press rooms at the site. On-Communications also provides separate private wireless VLANs for the event's organizers and facility personnel.
On-Communications is focused on business-to-business broadband services. All of the operator's broadband wireless deployments utilize 5.8 GHz spectrum. A broad portfolio of vendor equipment is at its disposal including Airspan, Aperto, and Redline. The company is developing plans for a UK-wide metropolitan fixed wireless network to be readied over the next 3 years. The expansion is expected to be a combination of organic market growth and strategic acquisition. The company recently acquired IP-NET from Networks by Wireless and the FWA infrastructure of CI-Net's RedKite, both in the UK.
By Jeff Orr
ORR Technology LLC
_____
tags:
Security of mobile Internet networks under scrutiny
A French security website reports a vulnerability with Airspan's ProST WiMAX CPE and Alcatel-Lucent trials a mobile broadband optimization and security solution with Bell Mobility.
The French Security Incident Response Team (FrSIRT) website announced the discovery of a vulnerability with Airspan's ProST WiMAX CPE. The report explains that the concern could be exploited by remote attack to bypass security restrictions and change the network's configuration. The site does not reference other vendors' equipment, suggesting that the gap is specific to Airspan's ProST devices and not a general issue for WiMAX products. "We take security very seriously and have notified our ProST customers of a patch available to alleviate any concerns," said Chad Pralle, marketing vice president for Airspan Networks. "Someone tinkering with frequency channels could have disabled their own ProST device, but at no time was access to network traffic or to the core network compromised."
WiMAX and IP-based mobile broadband networks (including LTE and future 4G services) are likely to encounter security issues as regional and nationwide networks are rolled out commercially. Will these issues resemble those encountered by Wi-Fi technologies, cellular voice networks or something entirely new?
Alcatel-Lucent offers a solution to better prepare mobile network operators for the onslaught of data consumption, battery-hungry applications and denial of service attacks with the 9900 Wireless Network Guardian (WNG). 3G carriers have not had a tool that could single-handedly track IP traffic across the many network layers and measure consumption of wireless network resources - a situation that could cause service-affecting network problems as new applications are transmitted on wireless networks. Common home and office broadband applications like email are considered bandwidth hogs for cellular Internet access. This type of solution also enables carriers to detect and protect their networks from a new class of wireless-specific denial of service (DOS) attacks targeted at the signaling layer and exhausting limited RF channels. Alcatel-Lucent is currently in trial with Bell Mobility of Canada.
"Circuit-switched mobile networks introduce significant overhead setting up and tearing down communications channels," adds Airspan's Pralle. "A short data transmission on cellular will spend more time on-air than wireless IP network protocols such as WiMAX and LTE." Service providers can learn from traffic patterns witnessed in large scale Wi-Fi deployments to understand how WiMAX networks will behave. Large file transfers and streaming multimedia content, not email applications, consume the greatest capacity.
Open networks and a shift to IP-centric data applications create new possibilities for mobile Internet communications. A number of challenges, including information security and thwarting malicious attacks, will need to be addressed as the mobile broadband market matures. Rapid vendor response to security and privacy issues along with creative network solutions are necessary to keep innovation ahead of hackers and mobile traffic jams.
By Jeff Orr
_____
tags:
Maritime WiMAX
Singapore’s port sees over 500 ships each day–many of which have to perform internet-intensive tasks
Singapore’s port sees over 500 ships each day–many of which have to perform internet-intensive tasks. To facilitate this, Singapore’s port is now launching a Mobile WiMax network known as the WISEPORT network. The network will provide connectivity throughout the port as well as up to 10 miles at sea, according to WiMAX Day. Thus it will enable more off-shore communication including the exchange of files, maps and other vital commercial data. For casual use, crew members will also now have better access to VoIP and video conferencing.
Some of the implications of the WISEPORT network provide interesting opportunities, particularly for cruise ships. Though some ports for cruise ships do have internet cafes available on port, access on ships themselves can sometimes be limited, if not grossly expensive. A WiMAX-based system could increase access points and in the future potentially defray some of the costs. This logic could extent to ferries and smaller passenger ships.
As brought out by the article, benefits of such a network can also extend onshore. For Singapore’s port,
Shipyards and marine engineering companies, shipping lines, terminal operators, technology companies and government agencies are all expected to benefit from the network. Already, companies and organisations such as Shell, APL, Global Marine Transportation and Tropical Marine Science Institute (TMSI) have expressed interest in connectivity.
Ari Zoldan
Launch 3 Communications
_____
tags:
The 700 MHz Auction is (Finally) Almost Over plus Lots of Other News
We are close to finally seeing the back of that pesky 700 MHz auction plus there are other important news in the WiMAX world.
First off the 700 MHz auction has surpassed round 132 and is closing in (slowly and seemingly endlessly) on a $20 billion ($19.6) price tag. I actually think the auction won't quite reach the $20 billion dollar number as the last 25 bids only brought in $644,000. Fierce Wireless is reporting that there are 1,089 licenses that have already won bids. It looks like, per FW, that the areas still seeing play are E-blocks in Maryland, Delaware, Louisiana, Virginia and Georgia. Plus there are some A-blocks seeing bids in North Dakota, Kentucky, Georgia and South Carolina. Man I am ready for this one to be over.
The Wall Street Journal is saying that Sprint should never have bought Nextel. I suppose that one is hard to argue with. The WSJ's contention is that having now written down $30 billion in relation to Nextel that this amount is virtually the market cap that Nextel held before the merger. Each company had a market cap of around $33 billion before the merger. The combined company value now is about $25 billion. With Sprint forecasting a loss of an additional 1.2 million postpaid subscribers in the coming first quarter the bleeding has by no means stopped. This is more subs than it lost in all of 2007.
My take on this is that this is a classic clash of corporate cultures, where both sides pointed fingers and did little to make the merger work. Far better probably if one or the other had just overwhelmed the other. Will Sprint survive and will its WiMAX initiative. I think so, but Sprint has some serious heavy lifting ahead of it.
Meanwhile on a happier note the cellular-news is reporting that the WiMAX equipment market grew 46 percent last year. It is always nice to hear good news and Infonetics Research reported that WiMAX equipment sales topped out just under $800 million in 2007. The WiMAX footprint now stands at 80 countries. Infonetics forecasts the 2011 market at $7.7 billion.
And Telecommunications magazine reports on the potential growth of the Internet to Zetabyte levels by 2015. I thought this very interesting as the article seemed to indicate that fiber initiatives would have strong traction. I can't disagree with that as my recent research for Maravedis on US WiMAX Opportunities and Challenges indicates that carriers are expecting customers to demand as much as 100 Mbps services in the next 5 years. Still this article is intricate and uses a lot of economics theory to support its contention.
And all of this coming on top of a new record by Alcatel-Lucent in the transmission of data across fiber optics. Alcatel-Lucent has succeeded in performing a 1500+ mile fiber transmission at 16.4 Terabits per second. All of this is in support of the goal of achieving 100 Gbps transmission channels. Folks want bandwidth and folks, the bandwidth is coming.
Tim Sanders,
www.TheFinalMile.net
_____
tags:
Can the Marriage of Wi-Fi and WiMAX Accelerate WiMAX adoption?
A group of WiMAX proponents have collaborated to produce a Wi-Fi WiMAX roaming technology. Will this be an important development?
Something important happened this past week in the form of news that Intel, Alvarion, Comfone and Iberbanda (a Spanish carrier) have collaborated to offer a Wi-Fi and WiMAX dual-system product. I happen to think this is really important. It isn't big news in the sense of a Sprint and Clearwire collaboration or a 700 MHz bit of news, but this could be potentially huge to the industry.
In making this statement I am mindful of the power that Intel's first Centrino Wi-Fi supporting chips brought to the whole Wi-Fi equation and the sustained business and access, albeit in the hotspot realm, have become. What Intel did is still incredibly important and that was to create a demand for a service that was largely unmet by creating interest at the edge with consumers. People want ubiquitous broadband that is convenient to them. Nobody has really built it yet however. If you give the public tools to have something, then suppliers will supply service.
The details of this project are that Alvarion is integrating Intel's WiMAX Connection 2250 chip into its 4Motion product that Iberbanda uses at 3.5 GHz. Comfone will handle the hotspot access point element. Comfone supplies Wi-Fi roaming services to 300 plus operators in 125 countries. Iberbanda has over 800 WiMAX base stations in Spain. The upshot is that customers should be able to roam on one account between Iberbanda access and some of Comfone's 35,000 worldwide Wi-Fi hotspots.
Sometimes the smaller news is the bigger news. When technology and regulation get out of people's way and allow them to create and do what they want---good things happen.
Tim Sanders,
www.TheFinalMile.net
_____
tags:
