In WiMAX is the latest industry buzzword on everyone’s lips. Not surprising really, given that Sean Mahoney of Intel described it as “more important than the Internet itself” and industry analyst firm Pyramid Research called it “the latest and most-hyped generation of fixed wireless technology in years”. Definitely, sStatements that which are enough to arouse the interests of most people in the industry.
However, in some aspects, and yet, WiMAX isn’t really a anything new technology – rather it’s an evolution of Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) which has been used throughout Africa and the Middle East for over ten years now providing voice and data services in both rural and urban areas where there is no existing telecoms infrastructure – or where the infrastructureit is old or saturated and its replacement or upgrade would be prohibitively expensive. not be cost-effective to upgrade or replace.
In fact, over 50 operators have built networks using Alvarion’s proprietary BWA equipment in countries including South Africa, Ivory Coast, Congo, Burkina, Faso, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Botswana, Swaziland, Madagascar, Eritrea, Benin, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Angola, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Mauritaniaa. These networks have been deployed using a variety of licensed and unlicensed spectrums to provide voice and data services to residential and business users.
But even understanding just because WiMAX as the next generation in the evolution of BWA still means that the new opportunities for incumbent and emerging is not new doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be excited about the opportunities it presents to new and existing operators provided by WiMAX are exciting and very worth exploring.
Says Adlane Fellah, CEO and founder of Maravedis Inc. a world-leader in market research and analysis, specializing in BWA and VoIP markets. (www.maravedis-bwa.com): “By 2010 most of the telecoms markets in African countries will be open to competition. The African continent will therefore be one of the most viable for telecom application using BWA especially for WiMAX which will bring the standardization's low cost advantages and allow new entrants and ILECs to compete and construct viable business cases when addressing residential and business customers.”
WiMAX vs WiFi
Just as the term Wi-Fi became associated with the IEEE 802.11 standard, WiMAX has become synonymous with the IEEE 802.16 standard. In the evolution path, WiMAX takes a major leap over Wi-Fi by providing last-mile broadband connectivity over a much larger geographic area ranging up to 30 kilometers radius and offers the features consistent with the stringent demands of operators in a wide variety of deployment scenarios.
CASE STUDY: MICROCOM, Congo
Founded in 1982, MICROCOM is the leading Wireless Internet Access service provider in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company had been using Alvarion’s proprietary BWA equipment for a number of years but in April this year announced that it had ordered BreezeMAX, Alvarion’s WiMAX-ready equipment to provide high-speed data services to corporate and residential customers in the city of Kinshasa.
Explaining his move to WiMAX, Mr. Leon NTALE, President of Microcom, said: “Wireless broadband is the most cost effective means to provide high-speed data to our customers in the city of Kinshasa, a city of approximately 8 million inhabitants with little wired infrastructure. WiMAX enables us to offer our customers wider coverage, higher data speeds for Internet access and VoIP, and other services which were not possible with our previous network. Our first deployments will be in the areas where connectivity was proved to be extremely difficult due to the non-line-of-sight conditions. With WiMAX, we believe that Microcom will be in a position to easily expand its service offering in DRC and quickly increase capacity for its customers.”
CASE STUDY: Arobase Telecom, Ivory Coast
Arobase Telecom is the Ivory Coast’s second national operator. It usest a fibre network to provide telecoms services throughout the country. However, in June this year Arobase Telecom in tThe Ivory Coast also ordered Alvarion's WIMAX-ready equipment to supply broadband data and voice services to corporate and SME subscribers in the nation’s capital city of Abidjan.Abidja
Gervais Assie Amani , CEO of Arobase Telecom, explains,L “We have found that wireless broadband is a very cost effective complement to our fiber network. The business community in Abidjan, a city of approximately 5 million inhabitants, is hungry for broadband. As an emerging operator, we enjoy the rapid roll-out of Alvarion’s network and as the country’s innovative operator, we are excited about offering WiMAX services today to our subscribers. We have started to deploy our WiMAX network few months ago and received very positive feedback from our subscribers regarding the quality and reliability of the Internet connection. Presently, we are expanding our network with additional base stations and hundreds of CPEs to provide services in the whole Abidjan areas.”
Adlane Maravedis recently talked to Thami Msimango, Managing Executive for Network Infrastructure Provisioning at Telkom South Africa. A full transcript of this interview is available at www.maravedis-bwa.com/index.html
Maravedis: What is Telkom SA status today vis-à-vis BWA? Have you deployed proprietary systems yet? What is your experience with BWA?
CASE STUDY: Telkom, SA: Trials are being conducted with selected customers….and we are determined to introduce the necessary infrastructure to leverage the next-generation WiMAX broadband wireless technology, and use it to complement fixed broadband services in a move to provide a total approach to broadband penetration.
As part of the trials, Telkom has installed two Alvarion base stations operating on the IEEE 802.16a standard at the CSIR and the Lukasrand sites in Pretoria following an agreement with Grintek to run trial sites with Alvarion's BreezeMax AXWireless Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) solution.
We have already demonstrated VoIP communication in conjunction with data transmission. The installations at the customer premises are currently of the first generation outdoor type.
Maravedis: What are your expectations vis-à-vis WiMAX?
Telkom SA: In addition to complementing fixed-line networks, the technology being tested would potentially open new market opportunities and close gaps. The delivery of last mile access continues to be one of the biggest technical challenges facing the ICT industry as broadband offering could not only be resolved with DSL or fibre solutions. Today's customers want portability and mobility in addition to just broadband connectivity. Wireless broadband technology has the potential to satisfy these customer demands. In addition, this technology has the potential of opening new market opportunity through fillings gaps and complementing the fixed line network.
Advantages of Standards
With the existence of proprietary solutions, the question arises whether the WiMAX standard is a market necessity. This is particularly relevant given that some proprietary solutions, can deliver superior technical performance on a specific feature, compared to their standards-based counterparts.
WiMAX Forum certification will foster a more competitive industry with lower costs and faster growth for broadband wireless worldwide.
The WiMAX Experience
While the development of industry standards often involves a time-consuming process that discourages innovation, the WiMAX experience has been anything but that, featuring rapid development and innovative solutions.
Support of innovation: The IEEE 802.16 family of standards supports variations, giving vendors the opportunity to provide state-of-the-art, differentiated solutions while remaining standards-compliant. And in the absence of an approved standard, several vendors, including Alvarion, have provided wireless MAN solutions over the past several years to meet market demands. As a result, market needs have not gone unfilled.
WiMAX not only avoids the main disadvantages of industry standards, but also is set to deliver powerful advantages. With worldwide endorsement of WiMAX and proven equipment interoperability, the standard will provide a range of compelling benefits to all players in the industry value chain.
Suppliers ·1 Assured wide market acceptance of developed chips and components
·2 Lower production costs due to economies of scale
·3 Reduced risk due to interoperability
Equipment Manufacturers ·4 Stable supply of low-cost components and chips
·5 Freedom to focus on development of network elements consistent with core competencies, while knowing that equipment will interoperate with third-party products
·6 Engineering development efficiencies
·7 Lower production costs due to economies of scale
Operators and
Service Providers ·8 Lower CAPEX – with lower cost base station, customer premises equipment (CPE), and network deployment costs
·9 Lower investment risk due to freedom of choice among multiple vendors and solutions
·10 Ability to tailor network to specific applications by mixing and matching equipment from different vendors
·11 Improved operator business case with lower OPEX
End
Users ·12 Lower subscriber fees
·13 Wider choice of terminals enabling cost-performance analysis
·14 Portability of terminals when moving locations/networks from WiMAX operator “A” to operator “B”
·15 Lower service rates over time due to cost efficiencies in the delivery chain
Alvarion and WiMAX
Alvarion has been instrumental in driving WiMAX to its current market prominence. Recognizing the value of a worldwide wireless MAN standard, Alvarion has made significant contributions to the development of the IEEE 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN standards. One of the many contributions was in the drafting of the mobile PHY/MAC features of the wireless protocol and creating the definition profiles for 802.16-2004.
Alvarion has played a key role in the WiMAX Forum since its inception. As a founding member, Alvarion holds several key positions in the Forum, with Dr. Mo Shakouri at the helm of the Marketing Working Group and the AVP of the Forum’s Marketing Division. Alvarion also chairs the ETSI BRAN HiperMAN Alliance, and its representatives serve on the Board of the Wireless Communication Association (WCA) in several key capacities.
Since July 2003, Alvarion maintains a strategic partnership with Intel to work together to incorporate Intel’s WiMAX chips into the company’s Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) systems. In addition, OEM partners include major mobile players such as Alcatel, Lucent, Siemens and others to market Alvarion’s WiMAX product line on a global basis.
The company’s involvement with standards compliance and industry organizations is not new. Alvarion has been a pioneer in the creation and development of additional wireless technologies over the past decade, as indicated by its significant contributions to the 802.11 and 802.11a Wi-Fi standards.
These ongoing activities culminated in mid-2004 with Alvarion’s launch of the BreezeMAX™ 3500, the industry’s first WiMAX-ready platform in the 3.5GHz band, already installed in more than 30 countries. Subsequently in January 2005, it was the first company to announce its mobile broadband wireless access, 802.16e, plan including a pilot product approximately one year later. Based on the IEEE 802.16/ETSI HiperMAN standards and WiMAX Forum profiles, BreezeMAX incorporates core wireless innovations, and leverages Alvarion’s 10-plus years of experience deploying orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems in commercial broadband wireless access (BWA) networks. Pacific Pacific
Conclusion
While proprietary wireless MAN solutions will continue to exist, for the most part they will be relegated to filling specialized market needs. Industry-wide adoption of the WiMAX standard will lead to lower-cost, widely available products for the mass market. Operators will be able to choose solutions from multiple vendors, enabling the deployment of standards-based wireless MAN networks suited to particular environments and applications, while lowering their costs and improving their bottom line.
WiMAX will provide attractive benefits to all players in the industry value chain – from chip set providers, to equipment vendors to network operators to end-users. Adoption of the WiMAX standard, and the WiMAX Forum™’s efforts to ensure its success, will greatly encourage the growth of broadband wireless markets worldwide. Eventually, WiMAX will eliminate the remaining barrier to providing broadband access to millions of potential users in under-served markets across the globe.
WiMAX is the most cost-effective solution for delivering broadband on a ubiquitous scale. Standardization will change the BWA market from a niche market to a mass market, bringing all the economic benefits that accompany a mass market product.
About the Author
Zvi Slonimsky is the CEO of Alvarion.
Over 8100 operators in more than 30 countries are already using Alvarion’s WiMAX-ready equipment. Alvarion is a founder of the WiMAX Forum and over 100 operators in more than 30 countries are already using Alvarion’s WiMAX-ready equipment.
For more information, visit www.alvarion.com.
