WiMAX Forum New President

WiMAX Forum announced that February 1st, 2012, Ronald Resnick will retire from his role as the President of the WiMAX Forum.

“Mr. Resnick has been a valued part of the WiMAX leadership for the past eight years,” said Dr. Mohammad Shakouri, Interim Chairperson of the WiMAX Forum. “The WiMAX Forum would like to thank Mr. Resnick for building a strong foundation for this organization, which will continue its work in standardizing and certifying technology to bring broadband to underserved markets across the world. We all wish Mr. Resnick the best of luck in his future endeavors.”

The WiMAX Forum also announced that Declan Byrne has been unanimously elected as Acting President of the WiMAX Forum. Declan Byrne joined the WiMAX Forum in 2010 as the Senior Director of Marketing. Prior to joining the WiMAX Forum, Byrne worked for Airspan as Chief Marketing Officer.

The WiMAX Forum performs a similar function as the WiFi Alliance; it promotes the use of the technology and tests compatibility. WiMAX Forum-certified gear is tested to for compatibility to the standard, so for example, a Samsung WiMAX basestation will work with a Huawei WiMAX client.

The IEEE develops communications standards. They include IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX), which the WiMAX Forum promotes and enforces, and IEEE 802.11 (WiFi), which the WiFi Alliance promotes and enforces.

Last week the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approved the “WirelessMAN-Advanced” as part of IMT-Advanced world-wide 4G technology standard. WirelessMAN-Advanced is based on the IEEE 802.16m. The WiMAX Forum calls it WiMax 2.0 (pdf)

Key features of WiMAX 2.0 include:

• Radio specification for FDD and TDD
• Support of IMT-A frequency bands
• At least 2 times the average data throughput of current Release 1.5 in similar spectrum
• Advanced interference management methods to support true reuse 1 deployments as compared to current reuse 3 deployments
• Round trip access latency is reduced to less than 10-20 ms levels which will allow more demanding services like online gaming etc.
• Support for self organizing networks
• Support for femtocells
• Support of relay stations
• Multicarrier aggregation up to 100 MHz
• Co-existence of 16e and 16m base stations and backward compatibility
• Over 70 VoIP calls per MHz

Analysts say there is perhaps a 75% technology overlap between the two dominant broadband wireless standards, LTE and WiMAX. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses.

Advantages of WiMAX 2 over LTE Advanced:

• Simple, fast and cheap
• Compatible with WiMax 1.0 and 1.5
• Can use licensed or unlicensed spectrum
• Fewer patent issues
• Less telco overhead and control

Dailywireless depends 100% on my single WiMax connection. It’s been (mostly) reliable since 2009, and costs me only $40/month. I get truly unlimited service, use my WiMAX dongle for both my laptop and my desktop, and watch Netflix at night.

You can’t do that on LTE. You’d go broke. It’s that simple.

WiMax combines the simplicity and speed of Wi-Fi with the mobility of cellular. It works. WiMAX lost a year or two in development and LTE was put on a fast track. The result; WiMAX got only a one year advantage, while Telcos jumped on duplex FD-LTE. India and China moved the momentum to TD-LTE.

But WiMAX 2.0 is simple, fast and license-free. It’s going to be hard to kill.

10 YEARS WIMAX FORUM

The WiMax Forum is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary today. In June of 2001, technology corporations and service providers formed the WiMAX Forum. It had three primary goals in mind: establish standards that ensured interoperability; work with government agencies to release spectrum; and establish and grow an ecosystem to encourage mass adoption of WiMAX™ technologies.

Two out of three isn’t bad.

Intel is given lots of credit (and blame) for WiMAX, but it was Roger Marks who lead the IEEE 802.16 working group which was established by IEEE Standards Board in 1999.

Roger Marks founded the IEEE 802.16 Working Group in 1998, and has chaired the 802.16 committee ever since.

It completed the first WirelessMAN air interface standard in 2001 (for use above 10 GHz), and approved 802.16a, the original Wi-Max spec, in January, 2003.

It was followed by the 802.16d (fixed) standard in 2004, which consolidated the previous standards and added MIMO support.

In December 2005, the mobile spec was approved (802.16e).

The goal of WiMAX was to extend WiFi-like service to an entire community. It would use inexpensive components and utilize licensed or unlicensed frequencies.

The key to WiFi’s success was a simple Time Division Duplex protocol and flat IP architecture. A basestation could be plugged into a DSL line. Simple. Cheap. WiMAX combined WiFi speed and simplicity with cellular range. It uses the (licensed) 2.3 Ghz, 2.5 Ghz and 3.5 Ghz as well as the unlicensed 5.8 Ghz and 3.65 GHz bands. It plugs into Ethernet – like WiFi. It supports roaming voice and high speed data – like cellular.

The IEEE used every trick in the book for Mobile WiMAX. The number of subcarriers in Scaleable OFDM could be adjusted dynamically. For weaker indoor reception, a Mobile WiMax client uses fewer (but stronger) subcarriers with rugged QPSK modulation.

With subchannelization, MIMO antennas and beam forming, coverage increased from 2km to 9km, a twenty-fold increase in coverage and subscribers. It wasn’t perfect. The Scalable OFDM carrier of Mobile WiMAX “broke” compatibility with fixed 802.16-2004, but it gained global acceptance. The WiMAX Forum formed to promote the standard and monitor interoperability between vendors.

Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia were dismissive. Their vendor specific, turnkey solutions for cellular carriers required lots of proprietary gear. But HSDPA could only fit about ten customers per segment, or 30 per base station. Mobile WiMax – in many ways just a glorified access point – could easily double the data rate and subscriber count – at a quarter the cost, claimed its supporters.

WiMAX was WiFi on steroids. All it needed was spectrum.

Today, IEEE 802.16m-2011 specifies the WirelessMAN Advanced — the first true ITU approved 4G standard with 100 Mbps mobile speeds. It was published by IEEE on 6 May, 2011, following approval on 31 March by the IEEE-SA Standards Board.

Samsung and Yota are testing Mobile WiMAX 2.0 (IEEE 802.16m) right now. By using 4X2 MIMO in an urban microcell, and 20 MHz TDD channels (double the usual 10 MHz), the 802.16m system can support both a 120 Mbit/s downlink and 60 Mbit/s uplink per site simultaneously, says the WiMAX Forum.

The LTE-Advanced camp may follow closely behind, with 100 Mbps upgrades to the current “4G” standards as early as mid-decade.

After WiMAX 2 and LTE, using 4×2 MIMO antennas (4 transmit, 2 receive), as many as 8 transmit antennas are expected to be utilized for beamforming. That would enable longer reach, more capacity, and interference reduction.

Ten years ago, I thought that Best Buy would be selling unlicensed 5.8 GHz WiMAX access points for $200 and that it would enable a grass-roots telecommunication revolution. I was mistaken. Instead, WiFi has held down the fort on the home front, in the unlicensed 2.4, 5 GHz and 60 GHz bands.

WiMax also lost out to Long Term Evolution as the dominant cellular broadband standard globally. But WiMAX will survive as a “niche” technology, said industry observers.

It’s a pretty good niche. WiMAX can run on licensed and unlicensed frequencies, it utilizes spectrum efficiently using Time Division multiplex on a single channel (like WiFi), as well as paired frequencies using Frequency Division (like cellular), and it is an open and inexpensive system with a broad base of vendors and users.

Maravedis Research recently announced that at the end of Q1 2011 there were 17.25 million WiMAX subscribers globally. Not exactly setting the world on fire.

But the accomplishments of the IEEE 802.16 standards groups and the WiMAX Forum, which tests compatibility between vendors, cannot be denied. They have given us a world-wide broadband wireless standard that works. It’s a remarkable accomplishment and transformative on a planetary scale.

Nobody can predict the future. But one thing seems clear; the dedicated engineers behind these broadband wireless standards have made the world a better place. They have a good reason to celebrate.

WIMAX FORUM: IS THIS THE END?

Word on the street today is that the main WiMAX Forum office in Portland has closed its doors. Some 40 people will no longer be working there, leaving only Chairman Ron Resnick and one other person to hold down the fort.

WiMax Forum recently opened a San Diego office which will also serve as a location for other WiMAX Forum team members. WiMAX Forum Certification testing will continue at the Cetecom labs in Spain, where cross-compatible WiMAX products have been tested for nearly 5 years.

The WiMAX Forum is an industry-led, not-for-profit organization, formed to certify and promote the compatibility and interoperability of WiMAX. IEEE 802.16 developed the technical standard for WiMAX.

But development and buildout slowed as telcos developed their own “4G” system (LTE) and governments waited for the economic downturn to pass before auctioning off their last, best chunk of spectrum for “4G” – some 200 MHz around 2.5-2.6 GHz.

Now, as spectrum auctions began in earnest, LTE has become the strong favorite — FDD in the 140 Mhz of paired frequencies, and TDD-LTE dominating in the 50 MHz unpaired chunk. WiMAX appears to becoming an outlier.

WiMAX Forum members, it is rumored, are bailing from the organization. With fewer members, WiMax Forum doesn’t have the juice to sponsor meetings and promote the standard. Some believe WiMax Forum may be folded into other industry organizations such as the Broadband Forum.

We’re still trying to get confirmation from Ron Resnick about the reported layoffs, and what the move to the new San Diego office may mean for WiMax Forum.

If WiMax is largely abandoned, what would the world loose?

• It’s an open standard supported by IEEE.
• Runs on both licensed and unlicensed frequencies.
• An established, interoperabile system, well matched for data-centric networks.
• An easy, compatible upgrade to 100Mbps mobile.
• A low-cost solution for governments, energy, education and independent ISPs
• Competition to cellular carriers.

Originally the WiMAX Forum projected covering 100 million subscribers in the United States by 2008 with some 120 million global subscribers by 2012. It’s running late.

WIMAX FORUM WIMAX IS GOING

The WiMAX Forum, meeting in Ft. Lauderday Florida this week, announced the number of WiMAX deployments has reached 518 networks in 146 countries. Almost two million mobile WiMAX subscribers are expected by the end of 2009, says ABI Research.

Among the Forum announcements:

• Russia’s Yota WiMAX network reports more than 200,000 subscribers since its commercial service launch in July 2009 and hit the break even point for its network.
• Malaysia’s Packet One Networks has topped 130,000 subscribers in its first year of service. In August 2008, P1 became the first company to launch commercial WiMAX services in Malaysia.
• UQ Communications, the Japan-based Mobile WiMAX service provider has contracted with Samsung for additional mobile WiMAX gear. YOZAN uses WiMAX as a backbone for its public Wi-Fi service. UQ says by March 2013, more than 93 percent of the population will be covered with Wimax.
• Clear announced multiple U.S. city launches and nearly 200,000 subscribers to-date. Clearwire’s WiMAX service currently reaches about 30 million U.S. residents. The company plans to reach about 120 million people by the end of 2010.

Regionally, Africa led with 110 deployments and Central/Latin America closely followed with 102 deployments. Asia Pacific reached 82 deployments and Western Europe and Eastern Europe host 69 and 84 networks. North America and the Middle East grew to 51 and 20 deployments, respectively. There are currently 145 WiMAX deployments across both North and South America.

By the end of 2010 WiMAX Forum projects that WiMAX technology will cover at least 800 million people.

The WiMAX Forum called for the Indian government to enable the 2.5 GHz auction to happen on schedule in January 2010 and take steps to release spectrum for WiMAX deployments in the 2.3/2.5 GHz frequency bands. According to the WiMAX Forum, every six months of delay in the auction process translates into USD $1 billion in lost revenue to the country’s economy. Today, there are 500 million mobile phone subscribers in India, but only 7.4 million have access to broadband connections.

India is the world’s second-largest mobile market and is adding around 10 million new subscribers a month. However, the market supports over ten mobile networks and prices are among the lowest in the world.

The Indian auction, scheduled for Jan 14, 2010, has now been postponed until mid-Feb 2010, due to lack of available spectrum at this moment. India’s Department of Telecommunications needs more time to allocate the required frequencies. The DoT announced in Aug 2009 that it will issue four 3G and three WiMAX spectrum slots nationwide. The auctions are expected to fetch more than INR250 billion (US$5 billion).

According to Infonetics Research, WiMAX will accrue nearly 28 million Indian subscribers by 2013 –exceeding the combined WiMAX subscribers in Brazil, China and Russia. Maravedis predicts 13 Million WiMAX Subscribers in India by 2013.

BSNL, Tata and Bharti Airtel are currently deploying WiMAX in the 3.5 GHz band, but the new 2.2-2.3 Ghz band, should lower costs and improve service. There is a school of thought which believes that since there is so much delay in the launch of 3G in India, operators can go directly to LTE, rather than use the band for 3G cellular.

In other news:

• Towerstream announced the launch of its tenth market in Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia is the fifth most populated metropolitan area in the country, behind other Towerstream markets New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth. Towerstream provides high speed wireless backhaul for businesses.
• Beceem Communications announced today a number of Uplink performance improvements to the company’s WiMAX chips. The 4G Turbo improvements enhance network coverage and user experience, especially at the cell edge and in areas of low signal strength. Beceem is on track to ship three million chips, “capturing more than 70 percent market share,” said Lars Johnsson, Vice President of Marketing at Beceem.
• Greenpacket announced new modems including the DX Wimax Indoor VoIP modem with directional antennas and built-in VoIP support. The Tower can be used for both home and SOHOs and it is a plug ‘n play device. The Green Packet ‘Shuttle’, a WiMax USB High Gain Modem is the world’s first high gain USB modem supporting both fixed and nomadic WiMAX.

WiMAX and LTE are in a death race to provide true broadband wireless. Many believe cellular-backed LTE will win this battle based on shear numbers — there are currently over 4 billion wireless users.

Verizon says it will launch 25 to 30 markets in mid-to late-2010 and will support average data rates per user of 5-12 Mbps (down) and 2-5 Mbps (up).

Verizon went for 700 MHz spectrum because of the coverage that is required for a nationwide network, explained Verizon’s Chris Neisinger at the WiMAX confab this week. Verizon agreed to pay almost $10 billion for 700 MHz C-Block spectrum during the FCC’s auction last year. Verizon says they’ll have 100 million POPs covered with LTE by year-end 2010 (which may be optimistic since they have zero now). Clearwire, which has 30 million POPs now, says they’ll cover 120 million by the end of 2010.

Clear has some 120 Mhz available at 2.5GHz while Verizon is restricted to about 12Mhz on the 700 MHz band. Barry West, president of Clearwire International, says most wireless consumers used on average around 30 megabytes per month, but the current average is around 1 gigabyte per month, and he expects the average consumer will use 14 gigabytes per month in the near future.

Analyst Alan Weissberger believes that pure performance and coverage are insufficient by themselves to attract a large number of subscribers to WiMAX.

Verizon’s planned LTE dongles on their 700 MHz band next year will likely be tied to data caps. A typical monthly mobile broadband plan for a netbook or dongle costs $60 a month, far more than the $15-$30 Verizon, AT&T and Sprint charge for tethering. Unlike Clear, FDD-based LTE is not likely to offer unlimited 3 Mbps service for $30/month.

They don’t have the spectrum.

Comcast’s data usage meter in Portland, Oregon, show customers how much data they consume in a month. Comcast has a 250GB per month limit, compared to the 5GB per month imposed by all the cellular carriers (except Clear WiMAX). AT&T charges $.48 per MB over 5 GB. That’s $250 extra if you use 10GB/month.

That would eliminate the home market for LTE. That’s okay with AT&T and Verizon. It doesn’t help universal access, but that’s not their problem. Maintaining the cash flow of legacy networks is job one for cellular providers.

Clearwire, on the other hand, expects to grow its WiMAX customer base in the United States to approximately 600,000 by the end of 2010. It has the disruptive advantage of bandwidth and a flexible, cost-effective, all-IP backbone.

Juniper predicts 50 million WiMAX subscribers globally by 2014 but LTE subscribers will exceed 100 million by 2014. Maravedis predicts 75 million BWA/WiMAX subscribers by 2014. ABI research forecasts LTE subscribers to reach 32.6 million by 2013. Yankee Group expects global WiMAX subscriptions to grow from 3.9 million today to 92.3 million in 2015. GSMA predicts 87M LTE Subs by 2014 but that HSPA 3G networks will provide a big cushion to fall back on.

LTE is likely to provide voice support in 2011 (even if it is shunted through traditional cellular channels). A WiMAX VoIP phone in that same time frame wouldn’t have comparable voice coverage. Clearwire has a self-imposed deadline for WiMax smartphones by Christmas 2010, according to Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow. Both “4G” phones will need dual band chips to deliver ubiquitous voice and data — in the later half of 2011.

Comcast could be a game changer. It’s Sprint’s CDMA all over again. New bottle. New wine. With TV.