Subject: [NEXTEL-1] WiMAX set to overshadow wi-fi

From: sparkie_rf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 23:55:09 -0000

Another day, another threat, opps I meant opportunity.

This stuff would be awesome down in the 450mhz range.
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WiMAX set to overshadow wi-fi

By Caroline Gabriel: Wednesday 09 July 2003, 07:40

THE PAST FEW weeks have seen a storm of debate about the economics 
and return on investment of Wi-Fi hotspots. What almost all the 
arguments entirely ignore is the standard lurking on the horizon, 
which will turn current assumptions on their head. This is the 
802.16x wireless metropolitan area network (WMan) specification, 
which is being developed and promoted by the WiMAX industry group, 
whose most powerful members are Intel and Nokia.

Intel has called 802.16 "the most important thing since the Internet 
itself", and even allowing for a dose of self-serving, it is not 
talking entirely in hyperbole. WiMAX will extend the potential of Wi-
Fi to far longer distances – around 30 miles. It is important, and 
is evolving at the speed of light (in standards terms anyway), but 
this rapid development is at the cost of the agenda being dominated 
by two already over-powerful vendors, Intel and Nokia.

WiMAX is showing off its first system profiles and interoperability 
tests at the the WCA annual conference in Washington DC this week, 
in a significant step towards making the 802.16a standard, ratified 
by the IEEE in March, a commercial technology. While a fully mobile 
version of WiMAX is in the wings, this first release will cover 
fixed wireless, and its supporters are focusing in particular on 
broadband last mile in unwired areas, and on backhaul for hotspots. 
Intel will start to make WMan chips this year and we should see 
WiMAX products early in 2004.

This is the opportunity for wireless technologies finally to grow up 
and offer the speed, multimedia support and ubiquity that Wi-Fi can 
never deliver. WiMAX president Margaret La Brecque is keen to stress 
the fact that Wi-Fi and WiMAX are complementary, but the newer 
standard holds all the real power. By providing a backbone for 
hotspots, based on standards rather than the various proprietary 
WLan expansion technologies out there, it makes the idea of a 
ubiquitous wireless network to rival cellular far more realistic 
than it ever was with Wi-Fi alone, despite the claims of the 
enthusiasts. The equipment makers are eyeing it keenly – amid all 
the doubts about the sustainability of the hotspot boom, anything 
that offers them a new product line plus helps to preserve the 
interest in Wi-Fi is to be welcomed.

For operators, there is a doubled edged sword. WiMAX operates in a 
mixture of licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and the initial 
products will be focused on 2.5GHz and 3.5GHz licensed and 5.8GHz 
unlicensed bands (though the full standard supports a far wider 
range of bands). The licensed spectrum gives operators the chance to 
apply for franchises for fixed wireless broadband provision, 
especially in rural and remote areas, something Intel is promoting 
assiduously as a means to increase investment in Centrino-enabled 
PCs (it now has a director of rural broadband access).

The unlicensed aspect means that independents have the chance to 
provide backhaul services for hotspots, which have the potential to 
create a nationwide wireless network. If the operators can control 
this, as they have been trying to do with Wi-Fi, they will be able 
to offer parallel, integrated services and achieve a stopgap as they 
struggle towards ubiquitous 3G – one with lower margins than 
cellular perhaps, but swifter ROI on lower upfront investment. They 
certainly have the power and resource to take control from 
alternative network suppliers, but they may also be condemning their 
3G investments to stillbirth.

But the genie is out of the bottle now, and while the operators 
hesitate, the equipment makers are driving ahead, Intel in the 
vanguard, and Nokia, which has supported WiMAX from its earliest 
days, looking forward to the mobile standard and to the chance to 
add a new form of base station business to its ailing networks unit.

There are significant names missing from WiMAX so far – its initial 
focus on last mile is indicated by the bias of the membership 
towards fixed wireless, OFDM specialists (the 802.16 specification 
is built on an implementation of OFDM from Wi-Lan of Canada), rather 
than enterprise focused suppliers or mobile carriers. Some major 
vendors will be taking the usual gamble of trying to establish such 
market presence for their proprietary solutions as to sideline the 
industry standard – Motorola with its Canopy broadband fixed 
wireless platform springs to mind. But these companies will join – 
Cisco being a critical target – and in the meantime, the really 
impressive aspect of WiMAX has been its clear focus and unity of 
purpose. So far, perhaps because of its fairly low numbers, with 
most of these being smaller companies, it has avoided the complex 
politics and hidden agendas of most industry bodies – though this 
comes at the cost of a direction that is highly dominated by Intel 
and Nokia.

The best example of this is to contrast the political fiasco that 
scuppered the fast Wi-Fi standard, 802.11a, with the clarity of the 
802.16a process. 802.11a had some technological shortcomings, 
notably its lack of backward compatibility with 802.11b, but its low 
uptake compared to the `g' version was largely because it was 
continually delayed by wrangling between the IEEE and the European 
ETSI standards body. ETSI's HiperLan standard and 802.11a use the 
same frequency and so there was pressure to unify the two, but this 
was achieved painfully, with a separate implementation of "a" for 
Europe, which has further delayed product roll-out and confused 
users.

In contrast, WiMAX has set out from the start to harmonize 802.16 
and the metropolitan area ETSI standard, HiperMan, and the 
specifications it showcases this week will demonstrate that 
unification. All this with remarkably little political in-fighting – 
the difference between leaving standards bodies to sort out their 
own futures, and putting a technology in the hands of vendors with a 
clear commercial objective, and deadline.

These vendors are finally giving broadband wireless the teeth it 
needs, with a standards base, to take on wired options for the last 
mile and for long distance networking. The WiMAX (Worldwide 
Interoperability for Microwave Access) group was actually set up two 
years ago by Nokia, Ensemble and the OFDM Forum, but gained a new 
lease of life in April when it was revived by Nokia in collaboration 
with Intel and added five new members, with nine more joining in 
May. The non-profit group takes a similar role to the Wi-Fi Alliance 
in WLans, backing development of wireless Man products based on 
802.16 and working on standards certification and interoperability 
testing.

The initial version of the standard operates in the 10-66GHz 
frequency band and requires line of sight towers, but the 802.16a 
extension, ratified in March, uses the lower frequency of 2-11GHz, 
easing regulatory issues, and does not require line of sight. It 
boasts a 31 mile range compared to Wi-Fi's 200-300 yards, and 70Mbps 
data transfer rates.

Labrecque says that collaborating on mass market products will 
achieve similar economies of scale to those seen in Wi-Fi WLan 
devices. She says base stations will cost under $20,000 and support 
60 enterprise customers with T1-class connections.

Systems based on the mobile version of the standard, which should 
ship towards the end of next year, about six months after fixed 
wireless products, will be able to achieve long distance wireless 
networking and will have far greater potential than Wi-Fi hotspots 
to provide ubiquitous coverage to rival that of the cellular network.

Although 802.11x cards will not work on an 802.16 network, the two 
could be bridged using a router between the two systems, effectively 
filling the gaps – and the inherent weaknesses – in the hotspot 
system. An extension of the standard, 802.16a, can operate over 50 
kilometers and without line of sight connection, and could provide 
the last mile link between the national backbone and the high speed 
WLans. However, volume shipments are not expected for over a year.

Components of the standard
The WiMAX standard, 802.16a, was published in March. It extends the 
April 2002 line of sight fixed wireless Man standard, which focused 
on licensed 10-66GHz spectrum. The extension provides for non-line 
of sight access in low frequency 2-11GHz bands, some of which are 
unlicensed, and adds support for PMP and mesh technologies, plus 
boosting the maximum distance from 31 to 50 miles. Both of these 
standards went largely unnoticed until the WiMAX group was formed, 
led by Intel and Nokia, to promote and develop commercial solutions. 
Intel has now promised WiMAX versions of its Centrino chipset for 
next year, while Nokia says it will have battery and other technical 
issues solved in time to launch a WiMAX cellphone in two years' time.

The "b" extension is concerned with quality of service features, 
while the "c" extension focuses on interoperability. It relates to 
protocols, test suite structures and test purposes. Similarly, 
802.16d focuses on fixing the errata and other protocols not covered 
by 802.11c.

The "e" taskgroup is working on enhancing the Wireless LAN air 
interface to support mobile as well as fixed broadband. It 
incorporates the work of the ad hoc committee, the Handoff 
Committee. A draft will be completed in July for ballot.

The "d" amendment creates system profiles for compliance testing for 
802.16a devices. These tests will be in place within two months.

The overall vision for 802.16 is that carriers would set up base 
stations connected to a public network. Each base station would 
support hundreds of fixed subscriber stations, probably mounted on 
rooftops. The base stations would then use the standard's medium 
access control layer (MAC) -- a common interface that makes the 
networks interoperable -- to nearly instantaneously allocate uplink 
and downlink bandwidth to subscribers according to their needs.

Conceivably, 802.16 MANs could anchor 802.11 hotspots, which serve 
as wireless local area networks (LANs), as well as servicing end 
users directly.

The 10 to 66 GHz standard supports continuously varying traffic 
levels at many licensed frequencies (e.g., 10.5, 25, 26, 31, 38 and 
39 GHz) for two-way communications. It enables interoperability 
among devices, so carriers can use products from multiple vendors 
and warrants the availability of lower cost equipment. The draft 
amendment for the 2 to 11 GHz region will support both unlicensed 
and licensed bands. µ

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