Having passed through the overhyped stage, WiMAX is now at a place where market players are trying to figure out where opportunities for the technology lie. However, determining what is real and what is hype is difficult; it involves cutting through the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).

 

I spent time at WiMAX World in Chicago to learn more from the movers and shakers in this fast-developing technology space. I came armed with questions about deployments and the threat of Long Term Evolution (LTE), a group of technologies that theoretically could enable 2G and 3G operators to ignore WiMAX altogether. In the last six months there have been numerous articles and technical white papers written about whether WiMAX is, in fact, necessary.

To cut to the chase, I spoke with Mo Shakouri, Vice President Chair for WiMAX Forum’s Marketing Working Group. Shakouri explained that the transition to LTE is more than a simple software upgrade, because carriers need to go from CDMA to OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) — which obviously requires hardware.

WiMAX Forum believes there a strong marketing campaign being waged by mobile operators and some hardware providers who want to slow FUD in the WiMAX market.

In order to combat the threat from LTE, the WiMAX Forum is feverishly working with companies to develop lower-cost customer premises equipment (CPE) devices, since carrier profitability is tied to device cost. In fact, the cost of such devices should soon be in the $20-$30 range. Shakouri acknowledged that the increased FUD has slowed investment in the market. But, globally, governments are pushing WiMAX because they realize mobile wireless broadband is crucial to the success of their nations. As a result they are allocating frequencies to make WiMAX a reality.

From Shakouri's perspective, most carriers will have to overlay WiMAX onto their networks to provide mobile broadband access at speeds sufficient for future applications. He explains this is happening in many countries today, but a few major operators are resisting this trend. In cases where operators spread FUD, it is coincidentally the case that they don’t own frequencies needed to easily roll out WiMAX.

This sounds to me exactly like what the major carriers and equipment providers did when IP telephony first started to become popular: they downplayed the new technology for years while secretly working on IP communications solutions themselves.

Shakouri also reminded me that WiMAX has a huge head start over LTE and laptops and other devices will soon be equipped with WiMAX radios. Result: LTE will be at a disadvantage.

I interviewed a number of people at WiMAX World and they concurred with most of what Shakouri told me. Motorola was a notable exception. I spent a good amount of time picking the brains of Corporate Vice President and General Manager Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Senior Directory Tom Gruba, and External Communications Manager  Kathi Haas. Their take? It is possible for carriers to skip WiMAX and many are doing so. Indeed, they agree that some say WiMAX has a three-year head start over LTE but nonetheless Motorola is actively engaged in providing LTE networks for its customers today. I pressed for an ETA but couldn't get one.

Motorola is truly agnostic in the LTE vs. WiMAX war and they will tell you they just want to do what is best for customers. Sometimes, as discussed earlier, this has to do with available frequencies. It is worth mentioning that Motorola also feels it is well-positioned in the wireless space to leverage wireline expertise and help carriers deploy their connected home visions.

My take is that WiMAX is happening today and has proven itself quite well. I have spoken with operators making money providing WiMAX service and they are happy with the price points and look forward to them going lower. LTE does have a tremendous advantage of a massive installed base of devices that will be upgraded by wireless carriers over time. In the end, there may be a winner but for the foreseeable future expect a moderately peaceful coexistence.

Other Important WiMAX Happenings

Chinese communications giant Huaweii now has 29 signed WiMAX contracts, 35 trials and 2,000 engineers developing WiMAX products. One of the latest products is a picocell that will be available during first quarter 2009. The company also has a second generation of its WiMAX base station available that also supports CDMA, HSPA and EVDO.

Palasium uses Israeli military technology to cancel interference in WiMAX networks. Think of this as noise cancelling for WiMAX. Using software, the company is able to target the interfering signal of adjacent antennas by producing waves that cancel them out. The result is lower cost and denser networks with less interference and QoS problems.

Comsys is one of the few companies in the WiMAX chip space with experience in GSM. The company targets device manufacturers and one recent Taiwanese company, dmedia, is using the Comsys ComMAX CM1100 baseband chip as part of a GPS device that allows real-time views of traffic at various intersections.

Soma Networks — a long-term WiMAX equipment provider — recently inked a deal with Indian telecom giant BSNL and will provide services on a revenue sharing basis. The company will seek more deals of this nature going forward.

Wavesat — a fables wireless semiconductor company — thinks it has hit a home run with low-power SDBC or software defined baseband Odyssey chips that allow an OFDMA core and a definable air protocol. The company will soon have a chip that does WiMAX or LTE — meaning lower prices than traditional chip vendors such as Beceem.

San Diego-based NextWave Wireless sells WiMAX chips that are ideally suited to video applications. The company's MXtv technology allows true mobile multimedia over WiMAX networks. The company also provides a broadcast service and owns spectrum which they are actively selling. To be honest the company's strategy is unusual — it seems overly broad. Then again it is similar to Qualcomm, a company who has been very successful doing similar things.

It is worth pointing out the company is in the sweet spot of the future: mobile multimedia. It will be worth watching to see if NextWave can pull off its ambitious goals of being a premiere WiMAX chip vendor in multimedia and other applications.

Fujitsu Semiconductor has made waves with its new Femtocell SoC, which supports 30+ meters of coverage and self-organizing networks Devices based on this chip will allow true connected home functionality on a licensed band and moreover allow cable companies to build the equivalent of p2p networks where their networks in dense areas could rival those of wireless carriers. The company is optimizing its chip for sub $100 CPE cost.

Alvarion has more than 230 deployments with 50+ being mobile. India and Russia are some of the hottest areas for WiMAX growth according to the company and Alvarion is now the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and research and development (R&D) WiMAX arm for Nortel.

Altair Semiconductor has a laser-like focus on low-power WiMAX chips and showed these chips off to me. These low-cost chips do not require external memory and are perfect for applications where battery life is critical or in areas of the world where device cost is a major issue.