WiMax.com:  Please tell us what Alvarion's planned timeline is for rolling out additional WiMAX products including what frequencies and types of products?

Alvarion launched BreezeMAX for 3.5GHz a year and a half ago, and the company now has more than 100 customers in 30 countries deploying it.  This past June, Alvarion also announced the development of BreezeMAX products for the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz bands, a self install CPE BreezeMAX Si, and the first commercial version of a WiMAX CPE using the new Intel WiMAX chip.  Product availability for the 2.3, 2.5 products and the Si is slated for 1H06.

WiMax.com:  When did you submit your first 802.16-2004 class products to Cetecom for testing?  Why did you not choose to submit during the first rounds?  Were you concerned about the fact that early testing would at least partially help define the testing methodologies and procedures?

On the contrary, we did submit our product in August in the first group of vendors who sent product to the labs.  The only thing we missed was the first Plugfest in early August, which was just a time when people were coming to the labs to "plug in" their equipment, and that was just a matter of shipping issues and reflected no lack of commitment on WiMAX testing by Alvarion.  In fact, many that were there only arrived later in that week and for sure we don't think that any of the work during the plugfests will "define" any test in a way that is positive to one vendor and negative to another.  The tests will be done according to the specifications set forth by IEEE 802.16 and the WiMAX Forum documents and in the end, the most complex testing will be for interoperability, which will be more defined at that time by the vendors actually trying to interoperate.

Certification testing overall will be done in Waves with Wave 1 testing beginning for the first time later this month, and we will participate in that as well.  Called "Primary Air Protocol Testing", it will be for those companies just starting in the market to do basic testing on their WiMAX air protocols, and as a result we will not seek to be "certified" at this stage as the functionality would be a step back for our current customers.  Wave 2 testing, called "Outdoor Services Application", will begin in 1H06 [first half of 2006] and will be the first commercial product testing. That is where Alvarion will seek certification.  Wave 3, called "Indoor Services Application", will begin in 2H06 [second half of 2006] and will be the first time that 802.16e will be certified focusing on a self-installable, portable CPE.  Wave 4, called "Mobile Services Application", will feature full mobility and will begin sometime in 2007.

WiMax.com:  Are all of Alvarion's first WiMAX products based on 802.16d?  What is Alvarion's vision for the future of Fixed WiMAX?  How long will you continue to build and support your existing proprietary systems?

Yes, all of Alvarion's first WiMAX products are based on 802.16-2004 (what many are calling "d"), and fixed will have a good future as an application.  For sure cable and DSL alone will not be able to cover everyone who wants broadband and fixed WiMAX will be the solution that fills the gaps.  This gap will be somewhere between 10 and 30% of users worldwide, depending on country, which means a sizable multi billion dollar market.  In terms of what product offers this application, there will be convergence between mobile and fixed and the base stations we sell (and some of the CPEs for that matter) will be capable of both "d" and "e" operation. 

As for our proprietary systems, we don't anticipate stopping their production.  The reason is that once a base station is deployed by a customer, the marginal cost of adding a subscriber is only the cost of the CPE.  For that reason, and even for spare parts, we will continue to support our proprietary systems for the foreseeable future.

WiMax.com:  What frequency will your next product work in? Will it be 5.8 GHz, 2.5 GHz or maybe 2.3 GHz and when do you anticipate that happening?

We expect to have 2.3, 2.5, and 5 GHz products available in the first half of 2006.

WiMax.com:  When and if does Alvarion anticipate adding 802.16e mobile WiMAX products to its lineup? Will the current dual standard for fixed and mobile mean that the two industries will be forevermore separate?

While the two applications will remain separate in many cases with mobile and fixed being two different markets with different carrier customers, end users, service models, etc, the WiMAX equipment itself will evolve over time from fixed to portable to fully mobile. And at the point when it is mobile, fixed will be part of that.  As far as standard "flavors", the key issue to focus around is the particular "profile" that will be the predominant one.  Profiles are defined by frequency, duplexing scheme, channel size, and FFT algorithm, and for there to be a standard profile there will need to be at least three vendors who agree on a single profile.  Right now it is hard to predict which profile will predominate.

For the record, Alvarion has been engaged in the development of an 802.16e mobile system and all related network elements (HLRs [Home Location Register], VLRs [Visitor Location Register], billing, etc.) for over two years and plans to be one of the first vendors with a mobile WiMAX system.

WiMax.com:  How big of an impact will the European regulatory protections for 3G (where 3.5 GHz mobility is prohibited in some countries) have on Mobile WiMAX?  What percentage of the European broadband wireless market does Alvarion currently enjoy?

It is just a matter of time before all frequency assignments will be reformed in order to allow mobility, so the restrictions you speak of will only hinder the development of mobile WiMAX in that particular country for a short time.

We don't predict our market share for Europe, but overall we believe it tracks with what others report as our worldwide market share of 30 to 40% of the market.

WiMax.com:  What aspects of Alvarion's technology ease the adoption of WiMAX standardization? What, if any, aspects of Alvarion's technology make it difficult for the company to shift to WiMAX? Did these relative strengths play a part in the company's decision to go with 802.16d and if so how?

We have been deploying OFDM systems for over five years, longer than any other WiMAX vendor, which helps us greatly in doing both fixed and mobile products.  There is nothing about WiMAX that makes it difficult for us to implement it. 

In general, Alvarion has established a market leadership role as a broadband wireless access company and the shift to WiMAX was a natural progression. We contributed significantly to the original 802.16 standards and were involved in the evolution to the 802.16d specification, just as we've been involved at every stage with 802.16e.

We chose to do fixed first as part of that natural progression and because it tracked with the overall evolution of the WiMAX specification and the work of the WiMAX Forum.

WiMax.com:  Does Alvarion anticipate that its existing Fixed Broadband Wireless products will carry a lower price point compared to its first WiMAX products and if so, how long is that anticipated to last?

No we don't.  Each product we sell is priced based on the value it brings to that individual carrier, the cost to produce it, and the technology inside, none of which is contingent on whether it's WiMAX or proprietary.  In fact the opposite argument could be made that since WiMAX is a standard, competition will cause these products to be cheaper.  But in the end, each is individual and gross generalizations are hard to make.

WiMax.com:  If WiMAX continues with dual standards for Fixed and Mobile for the foreseeable future, does Alvarion still believe that the mobile economies of scale (from potential high volume sales) will translate to Fixed WiMAX and if so, to what extent? Would you anticipate shared economies of scale  to be as high as 95%?

Definitely the economies of scale will translate.  For sure all the radio components benefit from the economies of fixed and mobile combined (and even from work done in related industries such as cellular and 3G).  For example, the Intel chip we use will soon be the Rosedale 2 which does both fixed and mobile performance so the benefit will be there, too. As for a percentage, it is hard to say but it is clearly more than half.

WiMax.com:  Much ado has been made of the recent Qualcomm acquisition of Flarion, which uses a version of OFDMA technology called Flash-OFDMA.  Does Alvarion anticipate that this could hurt or actually help its business and why? Does it also lend more credence to the OFDMA based Mobile WiMAX at the expense of Fixed Wireless and why?

Qualcomm's purchase of Flarion is actually an endorsement of the fact that OFDMA is the technology of choice for 4G. Qualcomm has hegemony in 3G cellular and needs to shore up their technology base in order to have a leading position in 4G.  This is why they bought Flarion, which was really a company that was in decline due to their standard effort, 802.20, and their main customer for the future, NexTel, both going away. 

Qualcomm may also want to get into WiMAX at some point with a multimode device, but it is too early to tell. And whether they have acquired any IPR [Intellectual Property Rights] that will roadblock WiMAX is inconsequential, since all companies in telecom and broadband wireless have core intellectual property which only leads to cross licensing between companies.  In any case, we don't think that Flarion has any more technology for OFDM and OFDMA than we or others do that are involved in WiMAX. 

As I have said, mobile and fixed are separate applications and markets today. We've been in deployments around the world for fixed WiMAX for over a year and this will continue.

WiMax.com:  Our research indicates that the Fixed WiMAX technology (OFDM 256 FFT) is not interoperably compatible with Mobile WiMAX in any iteration.  However we also understand that the various FFT sizes of OFDMA (2048FFT) or scalable sOFDMA (128FFT, 512FFT, 1024FFT) are not interoperably compatible either. In Alvarion's view did this affect its decision to focus on fixed products and what opportunities or problems do these non-interoperation considerations offer the WiMAX Forum. What product profile does Alvarion anticipate seeing for Mobile WiMAX first? Wi-Bro perhaps (which we understand is a subset of the Intel promoted sOFDMA)?

First, this is not true that fixed and mobile would not be interoperable.  There is a 256 FFT mode allowed in mobile.  So there is a case where the profile for fixed and mobile could be the same (for example, 3.5GHz, FDD, 7 MHz channels, doing 256 FFT). 

And also to be very clear, Alvarion is very focused on mobile and is busy readying its product for testing and eventual deployment. We've been in deployment with the equivalent of fixed WiMAX for over a year now as it came first and is a natural extension of functionality for our current customers.  We plan to have our mobile product ready as chips; mobile CPEs, etc. become available sometime next year.

WiBro is a first iteration of a WiMAX mobile product for Korea.  Until the specification for 802.16e is finished, expected by the end of this year, it is not clear how close the two will be in form and function.

WiMax.com:  Does Alvarion anticipate that the OFDM 256 FFT mode will be the one actually chosen for Mobile WiMAX? Does it anticipate a OFDM 256 FFT mode profile will be eventually added to 802.16e?

Overall the selection of FFT scheme will be by profile (which is a given frequency, channel size, duplexing scheme, and FFT) and so will different levels in different profiles. The decision will come down to exactly which one that will be employed by the group of vendors chasing a given profile. 

There will definitely be a 256 mode for "e" operation because some carriers/vendors, including alvairon, will upgrade from d to e and so will use the same FFT in the process.

WiMax.com:  Do you anticipate seeing WiMAX profiles for 2.4 GHz and 900 MHz unlicensed band radios and if so when?  Also, how easily re-tunable are your radio products to these frequencies?

Right now, the WiMAX Forum has not announced any plans to support these two bands, and therefore we have no plans to pursue this. As you may know, Alvarion has thousands of deployments of its BreezeACCESS systems in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands. 

To be clear, it will be very easy for us to retune our 2.3 GHz WiMAX product to operate at 2.4 GHz.  900 MHz would be more of a challenge as a new product, but pretty straightforward given that we already have products operating at that frequency.

WiMax.com:  Is Alvarion seeing its cellular carrier customers desiring to protect their valuable voice services by offloading some data load from voice spectrum?

We do see our cellular customers using fixed WiMAX today (or proprietary versions of it), but this is in order to sell home or business "wireless DSL" services to them.  No cellular carrier as yet has said that they would do Mobile WiMAX in order to off load traffic from their voice spectrum, but it is an interesting idea.

WiMax.com:  Motorola has said it intends to continue to support its existing proprietary Canopy products in all unlicensed band spectrums it currently offers, while simultaneously offering 802.16e mobile products. It has also said it would love to see a profile in 5.8 GHz for 802.16e (that it claims it could create dual base stations to deliver both signals over). This multiple WiMAX standard soup offers many possibilities such as a Motorola or others competing with 3.5 GHz 802.16e mobile products against Alvarion using 802.16d fixed units in the same spectrum, but neither interoperable, much less the multiple proprietary techs possibly still being built for unlicensed bands---how does Alvarion see this playing out over the next five years?

Again, the focus will be on profiles and for sure there will be the possibility that two different vendors will do two different profiles in the same band and not be interoperable, but I think in the end, everyone will benefit from interoperating so I think the differences will be worked out.  As for competition between a fixed installation and mobile installation, I don't see that for several years as they are different applications with different end users (and even different environments, locations).  For example, the predominant fixed deployments will be in suburban and rural areas, whereas, mobile will be in urban areas. 

In any case, vendors will have to continue to support those unlicensed bands with existing products due to the significant infrastructure investments already made to date.

WiMax.com:  Where does Alvarion see Mobile WiMAX driving the broadband wireless industry in the US? Where does it see it going internationally?

Mobile WiMAX will be a 4G solution that competes with other broadband delivery methods in general (DSL, Cable, WIFI, even fixed WiMAX), but principally will be a head to head competitor with 4G cellular solutions.  Just as we saw a huge uptake in mobile voice over the past 20 years, mobile data will be just as big and Mobile WiMAX will be at the center of that phenomenon.

Carlton O'Neal - Vice President of Marketing, Alvarion

Carlton O'Neal, a broadband wireless access (BWA) pioneer and leading spokesman for broadband wireless issues worldwide, currently holds the position of Vice President of Marketing for Alvarion, Inc.
 
Prior to joining Alvarion, O'Neal was Vice President of Marketing for Ensemble Communications, where he helped build the company to the international debut of its Local Multipoint Distribution Services (LMDS) products.  While at Ensemble, O'Neal was instrumental in developing key early customers, partnerships, and sales worldwide.  O'Neal began working in BWA in 1995 with Texas Instruments (TI) and later was Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Bosch Telecom which acquired the TI BWA division.
 
In his career, O'Neal has also held various management positions at Octel Communications and Southwestern Bell Telephone Company.
 
O'Neal holds JD and MBA (Summa Cum Laude) degrees from Southern Methodist University and a BSEE from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.