smart antennas

Forecasting wireless broadband is a complex proposition

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:59:58 -0400

I've had a few conversations now that center around the difficulties in projecting market growth for OFDMA-based mobile broadband systems, namely WiMAX and LTE (Long Term Evolution). It's no cut-and-dry prospect.

Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum, recently voiced his concern to me over analyst projections that forecast the market for one flavor of OFDMA as being bigger than another. "How are they getting there, because there are so many variables?" he lamented. That's why the WiMAX Forum plans to release a commissioned report soon, taking into account a number of variables.

What are they? In the mobile voice world, projections are relatively easy to make as most operators have deployed similar voice networks with similar coverage. But the mobile broadband world will be defined by the fact that not every operator will deploy their networks in the same way. Some will deploy fixed networks, others nomadic and still others fully mobile. What type of deployment an operator chooses has a bearing on capex, how many subscribers it will attract and what its return on investment could be. Frequency bands certainly play an important role given the fact that an OFDMA network would require more cell sites at 3.5 GHz than 700 MHz. Moreover, what sort of business plan are mobile broadband operators embarking on? A simple access model? VoIP services, mobile TV? How much spectrum does an operator have? Then there are technical considerations such as MIMO and smart antennas. The list goes on.

Michael Thelander, head of Signals Research, and a crew of experts have spent 15 months tackling these variables. His firm has released a new economic study evaluating mobile broadband. Rather than predicting any technology winners or subscribers, the firm plugged these different variables I mentioned to come up with economic feasibility of deploying OFDMA-based systems. Signals Research studied wireless broadband across 65 countries, eight frequency bands and the various flavors of OFDMA. The firm then plugged in different variables, such as nomadic vs. fully mobile deployments, to determine an operator's network economics.

For example, if an operator deployed a truly mobile broadband wireless network that is capable of deep in-building penetration to a handheld device at 2.5 GHz, covering the top 70 percent of the population would require about 11 times more coverage of cell sites than a network that was designed to provide semi-fixed coverage and nearly 20 times more coverage cell sites than a network that was designed to provide fixed wireless services, Thelander said.

Of course, just because it's cheaper to deploy a fixed network, doesn't mean every market can support one. The North American market has a limited market for fixed or semi-fixed networks, while a market like India, with low broadband penetration, could easily find success from such deployment scenarios.

"Given our analysis of existing telecom demand, combined with these metrics and their underlying economic implications, operators in developing markets may be better off initially designing their networks for nomadic or semi-fixed services and then grow into higher degrees of mobility as subscriber uptake increases and they begin to add new cell sites for capacity purposes," Thelander said.

The bottom line is the greater the risk, the greater the return. Operators taking the most risk are those deploying a fully mobile WiMAX network, such as Sprint, because the industry has yet to see a dramatic swing in mobile broadband subscriber uptake and usage patterns. "There has to be something that drives a lot of data," Thelander said.

"One could argue that with the introduction of a new broadband wireless network that all of a sudden there will be a dramatic swing in subscriber uptake and usage patterns," Thelander said. "We don't disagree, but if we use the demand that exists today in these countries, or even multiples of what exists today, as the frame of reference for predicting future adoption on these new networks, then fully mobile networks would be largely under-utilized and, as a result, network economics would suffer."

Clearly, the mobile broadband world has become inherently more complex.--Lynnette

ALSO NOTED: Microsoft may be working on a Zune phone; Alvarion chosen for Russian WiMAX deployments; and much more...

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:59:51 -0400

> Champaign, Ill., is getting an outdoor WiFi solution using adaptive beam forming smart antennas from NextWave's Go Networks. Article

> Microsoft may be working on a Zune phone. Article

> Alvarion announced that its BreezeMAX WiMAX system was chosen for a deployment project intended to cover various cities in Russia. Release

> 3 Scandinavia and Nokia Siemens Networks have launched a commercial 3G Push-to-Talk and Presence service in Sweden. Release

And Finally... The Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg gives his assessment of T-Mobile's UMA service. Article (WSJ sub. req.)

Trend: The emergence of smart WiFi

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 19:01:38 -0500

The growing popularity of WiFi is not an accidental. It is a cheap networking solution which does away with cabling and other hassles. When it comes to more demanding tasks such as streaming videos, however, WiFi in its current state may be less than ideal. There are several reasons for this. WiFi was developed for delay-tolerant data applications, and it relies on higher level TCP protocols for error correction and packet retransmissions. WiFi is also a shared medium which transmits signals in all directions. Signals are dispersed on multiple paths, hard to control, and they often arrive out of phase. The results are reduced and unpredictable signal strength and temporary dead spots and packet errors. When you add to this the fact that the signal is susceptible to interference, it is easy to see why you would not want to watch a video over WiFi.

Ruckus CEO Selina Lo says the solution is smart WiFi which combines MIMO antenna arrays and sophisticated traffic engineering software. Smart WiFi determines which signal paths are available and the quality of these paths given the location of a specific endpoint and the traffic being transmitted to it. Smart WiFi continuously monitors and ranks the paths on several metrics (signal-to-noise ratio, throughput, packet errors, jitter, signal strength) to determine the quality of any WiFi link. Smart WiFi signals are also focused in a specific direction, minimizing interference and maximizing range and coverage.

If signal quality degrades, the system quickly (that is, in milliseconds) directs the WiFi signals to a better path, thus maintaining consistent high data rates while minimizing packet errors and retransmissions. QoS software automatically classifies different types of IP traffic before transmission over smart antennas to ensure appropriate bandwidth schedule for different classes of traffic. Smart WiFi systems also identify and handle multicast traffic differently: The system sorts incoming traffic into queues as specified by 802.11e, and multicast streams are tuned and prioritized to ensure the same service quality levels equivalent to unicast traffic. There is more, but we can already see why smart WiFi offers what it takes to allow a single home network to service voice, broadcast quality video and data.

For more on smart WiFi:
- see Selina Lo's commentary at Converge

Work on 802.11e concluded

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:01:39 -0400

The IEEE 802.11 Working Group has concluded its work on 802.11e specification. The standard bolsters the MAC layer of 802.11 chips so they can set traffic priorities for video, audio and voice on WiFi networks. It is not as if vendors can take full advantage of the new specifications right now as this will have to wait on word from the Wi-Fi Alliance. The Alliance has been testing a subset of the 802.11e's draft specification, informally referred to as WMM (for WiFi Multimedia), for a year now. Observers note that the Alliance took a similar approach to WPA, which is a subset of 802.11i. When 11i was finalized, the Alliance updated its test to WPA2 to accommodate the final version of 802.11i.

Yes, 802.11e makes video transmission over WiFi networks easier, but companies active in the consumer market, where wireless video will be most in demand, say it does not do enough because it addresses a problem which is relatively easy to solve (that is, offering rather rudimentary hardware prioritization for differentiation of some classes of service). Ruckus Wireless' Bill Kish argues that the more immediate problem for consumers of video and voice over wireless is link stabilization, something 802.11n would address. Ruckus' BeamFlex technology (mixing seven smart antennas and 127 antenna signals) also addresses this problem.

For more on on 802.11e:
- see Eric Griffith's wi-fiplanet report

Mauritius world's first unwired WiMax nation

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:01:39 -0400

The tiny (very tiny: 100 sq.mi., 1.2 million people) Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius is about to become the world's first country to deploy a complete nationwide high-speed wireless network. The government calculates that the new network will make the beautiful island a hub of cyber business activity, expanding the small nation's economy beyond tourism and fishing. Navini nomadic broadband wireless access will offer covergae of the entire island, part of it rather mountainous and rugged, addressing the residential, business, and recreational needs of the island's population and year-round visitors. The deployment will take advantage of next-generation 802.16e-based WiMax.

Navini's system is a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) WWAN solution featuring smart antennas. The technology provides a wide range of coverage, extending miles from the base station. Since it is a zero-install solution within the area of NLOS coverage, customers will have no problem to get it going. In conjunction with this island-wide WiMax deployment, the government of Mauritius announced it was becoming an e-government: By the end of the year every Mauritian will be able to conduct any and every business related to the government online and wirelessly throughout the country. Citiziens ordering services on-line will be able to access these services the same day the service is ordered. The entire network is being installed by ADB Networks the main Internet Service Provider in Mauritius.

For more on Mauritius' move:
- see this gizmag's report
- the Mauritius government's e-government | cyberhub pages
- ADB Networks website