Wimax

Kazakh operator plans WiMAX network

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:46:59 -0500

Kazakhstani operator ARNA is deploying a mobile WiMAX service in 36 major centres throughout the country. ARNA, which is Kazakhstan's largest private provider of fixed-line telephone and Internet services, was awarded spectrum for a national WiMAX network earlier this year. The operator has awarded its network supply contract to South Korean WiMAX vendor Posdata. The contract is for 100 radio access stations, access control routers, a network management system and mobile terminals. Earlier this year Posdata won a mobile WiMAX contract in Uzbekistan.

For more on this story go to Cellular News

Related articles:
Kazakh mobile market shows strong growth

French WiMAX deployment in disarray

Paul Rasmussen — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:30:24 -0400

Two years after the allocation of the regional WiMAX licences in France, the local telecoms regulator, ARCEP, has found that only three of the 19 licence holders have met their obligations with approximately 15 per cent of the promised sites operational by the end of June 2008.

According to Ovum, Bollore Telecom, the most aggressive bidder for WiMAX spectrum, had only deployed 11 sites by the end of June 2008 instead of the 968 sites it was supposed to have rolled out. However, there are even worse situations, as nine licence holders have done nothing. In total, 3,564 sites were supposed to be operational by the end of June 2008, but only 526 were effectively up and running.

The situation, claims Ovum, has not been helped by the French WiMAX market becoming even more fragmented, with a total of 19 licence holders compared to the original 10. This is mostly due to the fact that the regional public authorities that won spectrum have been distributing their rights at a department level. The lack of WiMAX end user devices has also not helped the overall position.

ARCEP has stated that the supervision of WiMAX rollouts will continue until the next deployment obligation deadline, scheduled for December 2010.

However, WiMAX looks increasingly likely to remain a niche market in developed broadband countries, whereas in Eastern European countries its chances of success are more likely.

For more on this story:
- go to Ovum

Related articles:
Rumour Mill: Will Google finance French WiMAX deployment? Google WiMAX story
France investigates lack of WiMAX deployments. French WiMAX story

Femtocell design tested for LTE compliance

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:02:03 -0400

With LTE being seen as a major boost to the future success of femtocells, the joint testing of a reference design against the proposed LTE standard should help with its chances.

The joint testing has been conducted by picoChip, a U.K.-based femtocell silicon developer; mimoOn, a German-based SDR specialist; and the test equipment vendor Agilent Technologies. The objective behind the test was to verify that the femtocell reference design met the requirements of the LTE standard as measured by the recently developed 3GPP LTE modulation analysis option from Agilent.

picoChip and mimoOn, which have been co-operating on the reference design for the past 12 months, recently announced the availability of what they suggest are the first LTE femtocell and picocell reference designs, the PC8608 Home eNodeB and PC8618 eNodeB respectively. The design is based upon the same hardware platforms as picoChip's WiMAX products.

For more on this story:
- go to EE Times Germany

Related stories:
Qualcomm buys into femtocell developer. Qualcomm story
Femtocells--big market, bigger questions. Editorial on femtocell

Rumour Mill: Will Google finance French WiMAX deployment?

Paul Rasmussen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:03:24 -0400

Strenuous denials have come from all those said to be involved in deploying a nationwide WiMAX network in France. The suggested joint venture, which would involve funding from Google, was reported by the French daily Les Echos to include the ISP Free, a unit of Iliad, and Bollore Group's Bollore Telecom. While the companies mentioned--Intel Capital was also included in the Les Echo article--have refuted any suggestion of discussions or talks, Free is the sole holder of a national licence for WiMAX and Bollore Telecom holds 20 regional licences for the service. A nationwide network in France is estimated to require €1 billion investment and would need the assistance of technology providers and wealthy backers--roles that Intel Capital and Google could, and might be very eager to, fulfil.

For more on this story:
- go to Forbes

Related stories:
Europe's first mobile WiMAX network goes live. Mobile WiMAX story
Clearwire eyes European WiMAX partnerships. Clearwire WiMAX story

Clearwire eyes European WiMAX partnerships

Paul Rasmussen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:06:49 -0400

Having collected together a number of heavyweight backers for its U.S. WiMAX deployment, Clearwire has revealed that it is considering partnering with European firms to help it deploy mobile WiMAX. The company owns licences in seven European countries, covering 200 million people. "There are ongoing talks about potential partnerships," said Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff. "The transaction in the U.S. has prompted some interest. It might behove us to partner with those companies who might bring something more to the table." Without revealing any names, Wolff said companies of interest could bring with them network infrastructure and subscriber bases.

Clearwire's expansion into Europe goes back to 2004. Since then, Clearwire has acquired 3.5 GHz licences in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Romania, and Spain, and through its affiliate in Denmark, Danske Telecom A/S . As of the end of March, Clearwire had just 51,000 customers in Brussels and Ghent, Belgium; Dublin; and Seville, Spain. Separately, the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is planning to invest up to US$20 million in the Russian WiMAX broadband Internet provider Prestige, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Enforta Group. The investment, designed to improve Internet coverage in Russia, will help Enforta increase its service area to 55 cities.

For more on this story:
- go to EETimes and Unstrung

Related stories:
Clearwire expects 30 million subs by 2017. Clearwire story
Comcast CEO offers insight on Clearwire investment. Clearwire CEO story

Prospects fade for Mobile WiMAX

Paul Rasmussen — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:22:16 -0400

The launch of commercial LTE services by late 2009 is seen as one of the bigger of many nails in the coffin of Mobile WiMAX, claims a new study by Frost & Sullivan (F&S), a market research firm.

According to Luke Thomas of F&S, the prospects for the technology are coming under increasing threat unless spectrum auctions and commercial Mobile WiMAX rollouts (compliant to Wave 2 Phase 2 certification) do not take place by 2008. "Recent events have been unfavourable toward the technology. Any operator looking at Mobile WiMAX has to consider the current environment in which 97 per cent of laptops are shipped with Wi-Fi. 3G LTE is expected to be a fully ratified standard by the end of 2008 or beginning of 2009 with deployments slated to occur in late 2009 or early 2010 offering peak data rates of up to 170Mbps."

Thomas believes that 2009 will be the year when operators begin to realize that Mobile WiMAX can no more be considered as a feasible mobile broadband "access" technology. He comments: "In terms of indoor wireless broadband, WiFi fits well in this space and with the emergence of 802.11n, which includes MIMO, throughputs would be far better than what Mobile WiMAX can deliver. With respect to outdoor mobile broadband environments, users would expect Mobile WiMAX to seamlessly hand off to cellular networks in the absence of WiMAX reception. In reality this is not possible as Mobile WiMAX is not backward compatible with existing cellular technologies."

Regardless of this pessimistic viewpoint, Intel has continued to invest and lobby for the greater adoption of Mobile WiMAX, as seen by its recent acquisition of a WiMAX licence in Scandinavia.

For more on this story:
- go to 3G.co.uk

Related stories:
Europe's first mobile WiMAX network goes live. Mobile WiMAX story
Europe allows mobile WiMAX at 3.5 GHz. Mobile WiMAX story
Intel looks to break into Europe with WiMAX. Intel WiMAX story

Europe's first mobile WiMAX network goes live

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:59:56 -0400

WorldMax has launched Europe's first mobile WiMAX network covering the centre of Amsterdam, Holland. The network, which is being run by Alcatel-Lucent and which is part-financed by Intel, operates in the 3.5GHz frequency band utilising 80MHz of spectrum. Coverage is currently limited to within the Amsterdam ring road but WorldMax is promising to deploy a 3,000 base station strong national network in the future. WorldMax is marketing the service under the brand name Aerea and is claiming download speeds of up to 1Mbit/s and uplink speeds of up to 128kbit/s.

For more:
- go to The Register and Unstrung

Related stories:
Intel looks to break into Europe with WiMAX. Article
Europe allows mobile WiMAX at 3.5 GHz. Article

Intel chairman urges Russian President to go WiMAX

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Not willing to let up on its campaign to see WiMAX become a widescale success, Intel's chairman, Craig Barrett, is reported to be planning to meet with the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other government officials in an effort to open the door to WiMAX.

Intal is said to have become frustrated at the lack of progress following the signing last year of a WiMAX co-development agreement with the Russian telco Comstar. The joint effort targeted a city-wide mobile WiMAX network in Moscow, but government allocation of frequencies has been an obstacle to implementation, Barrett said. If negotiations are successful, Intel hopes to launch a WiMAX network in Russia by the end of the year.

Regardless of this high-level lobbying, the Russian telco Enforta has announced plans to expanding its WiMAX network to cover another 22 cities this month, bringing the total to 55--but excluding Moscow.

For more on this story:
- read EE Times and Telegeography

Related stories:
Virgin Group enters WiMAX business in Russia. Virgin WiMAX story
Russia's MTS first with commercial 3G service. MTS 3G story

ALSO NOTED: PicoChip readies industry's first LTE femtocell ref design; U.K. WiMAX player snaps up WiFi aggregator; and more...

Thu, 22 May 2008 06:59:50 -0400

> PicoChip readies industry's first LTE femtocell ref design. Article

> U.K. WiMAX player snaps up WiFi aggregator. Article

And finally... O2 chief: Industry reputation is embarrassing. Article

New chip will target LTE/WiMAX femtocells sector

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:59:56 -0400

Having already achieved success with its 1st generation of femtocell silicon, RadioFrame Networks (RFN) is preparing to launch its latest Omniradio design that will support femtocells wanting to operate within LTE or WiMAX networks.

The company, which has already seen its femtocell chip technology being integrated with equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks--and more recently into Orange's wireless network in Europe, claims that this latest chip will ensure "an excellent performance-to-cost ratio in one chip that can support 2G, 3G and now LTE and WiMAX networks."

"RadioFrame is unique with our approach of an upgradeable platform solution that lets a wireless network provider implement femtocells in 2G, 3G and 4G networks and upgrade those same femtocells remotely as requirements for standards change," said RadioFrame CEO Jeff Brown. "We are designing the RadioFrame solution to be both the first and last femtocell product that an operator would ever need to deploy."

For more on this story:
-read EE Times

Related stories:
Nokia Siemens looks to slash femtocell prices. NSN story
Femtocells face their tipping point. Femtocell story