This story was in my bookmarks folder for a few days now and I took no rush to publish it. I decided to chew up on it for a while to understand what it actually means. Since it’s all going to be in a paper you can purchase early June, I’ll get right to it and skip the details.
Mark May 1st 2007 in your calendar as the day when WiMAX changed forever. Until now it’s been merely another wireless technology that competed with WiFi. But world’s largest WiMAX-class service provider Clearwire just received FCC approval for the first 802.16e Laptop Card.
With doors to true mobility open nothing can stop Clearwire (and WiMAX) to show us the real power of the very much hyped technology. I’m watching!
Intel wants to kill wireless networking with its integrated powerline Ethernet!
They want to push HomePlug AV 200Mbps powerline standard into their desktop designs next year as an optional feature, in particular in Intel’s Viiv platform (the multimedia branch for home).
We’re going to cover this to more extent as soon as it gets more realistic. Till then, have fun staying wireless! WiFi rulez! ;)
Telecoms Pricing Asia
Le Meridien Hotel, Singapore
28th-31st May 2007
Late May I’ll be in Singapore as a key speaker for IIR’s Telecoms Pricing Asia ‘07. This is the third event organized by the Brits that I’ll attend and deliver to, following Fixed Mobile Convergence ‘06 held in Amsterdam and Telecoms Pricing ‘06 held in Barcelona.
The subject of my upcoming keynote, Establishing a framework for wireless service pricing which reflects the different capital and operational costs of WiMax, wireless local loop and UMTS/HSDPA deployments will revolve around the following draft:
Today’s standards bundle provides great flexibility for network deployment.
While it might look like an easy plan to blueprint a new rollout and provide
a good pricing framework to effectively monetize it, there’s a number
hurdles to overcome:
- determining the right technology (based on the market size, geo,
penetration and lifecycle expectations for backend systems used);
- determining the right mix (WiMax + WiFi? WiMax only? HSDPA+WiFi?);
- outlining the costs and rollout timeframe;
- examining exit strategy and determining fruitful adoption incentives
to generate growth;
- “Will it work?” – cheating the incremental rollout;
- “Keep an eye on net neutrality and disruptive 3rd party add-on
services!” – how can innovation maximize revenue without hindering
sensitive end user alternative choice?
Telecoms Pricing Asia is the world’s premier pricing event focusing on Asian telecoms and talks about maximising profitability and customer retention in Asia’s competitive telecoms markets.
To find out more or register for the event go to IIR’s website: TP Asia
Free Pass!
To get you guys into it, here’s a neat trick! As a speaker at the event I’m entitled to bring along a guest that gets free access to the conference!
A WirelessIsFun.com exclusive, I’ll give out the invitation (valued US$3,800) to one of the WiF:)) friends so he/she can join me in Singapore!
You gotta tell me soon if you’d like to join in so I can announce the event organizers. Unfortunatelly the invitiation does not cover travel or accomodation expenses. I really wish it did.
A Colorado University graduate, part of a team of 5 students in a telecommunications class doing a research project on municipal wireless service in Romania got in touch with me to find out a WiFi executive’s thoughts on muni WiFi, obstacles and challenges of doing business in Romania.
They are working on a multi-million-dollar project that, they hope, will involve Siemens in a municipal WiFi mesh system for Cluj Napoca, Romania (population cca. 500.000).
Details are not so important at this stage so I’ll keep the guys in the shadow even if they plan to compete with our business here (c*free has 22 hotspots in Cluj Napoca, one is metro-class).
I think it’s surprising the amount of attention this Transylvanian city gets from a wireless perspective. Our developments have been natural as we’re based here. At turn, a US designed muni project for blooming city in Romania is interesting read. There’s good wireless business perspectives in Cluj but I’m inclined to think it’s just a contextual hype.
FON is registered at WiMAX World Europe among other future WiMAX operators and is planning to rollout this technology. This news has not been promoted through the official corporate channels so this it’s fresh like a lime squeezed in a Corona.
Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development at Fon, will be speaking about their WiMAX plans as described in the conference program:
Thursday, May 31, 14:30Panel: Digital City Service Provider Business Models
Moderator: Roberta Wiggins, Research Fellow, Yankee Group
Panelists: Rafi Haladjian, CEO and founder, Ozone
Niall Murphy, CTO, The Cloud Faisal Galaria, VP Business Development, Fon
Ben Murray, Head of Business Development, Seamless Mobility Solutions, Motorola Networks & Enterprise, EMEA
In the past year, a free service provider market has emerged with the expectation that advertising can substitute for free service. Companies like Google and MetroFi in the U.S. are trying to develop a unique revenue stream from local based advertising, and make nomadic broadband a universal service. But while they are giving service away, others are trying to create service revenues. A balance between the two vested interests needs to be created. Can advertising and content sales generate sufficient revenue to support free services? What additional sources of revenue can service providers exploit in building a sustainable business case?
If these guys keep making the news I might make a separate category for them. Hmm..
Yet, I still don’t think WiMAX will make it though! :P
Austria Center, Viena, will host May 29th through May 31st this year a major event: WiMAX World Europe!
We missed last year’s an I will personally miss this year’s also, because I’m a guest speaker at Telecoms Pricing Asia ‘07 that will be held in Singapore roughly in the same period.
Nevertheless, as much as I keep deconstructing the WiMAX (802.16e) hype, there’s good reasons to visit this forum. 2007 is one year closer to the actual rollout of the first commercial networks around Europe.
In Europe, the situation will be particularly interesting, and there are some key events that will help shape the market in this dynamic region over the coming years. Many regulators will make their decisions on how to allocate the important 2.5GHz spectrum, in effect ruling on whether WiMAX will have access to 3G-class frequencies, or will have to focus entirely on 3.5GHz until new spectrum options become available. In the 3.5GHz area, most major economies will have auctioned licenses by the end of 2007, spurring one of the most concentrated build-out programs in the world from the middle of the year, with particular growth opportunities in the eastern part of the continent and the Middle East, the Conference Chairs say.
Get busy to register early as Expo Passes are free of charge if you sign in before 4/13/07!
A study by WiFi Alliance details a dynamic and innovative Wi-Fi ecosystem in India, with investmens expected to exceed a whopping $750 million by 2012.
WiMax is also discussed in conjunction with WiFi deployment but, as we expected, is only set to bringing broadband connectivity to previously unconnected rural and urban areas alike.
This is great news as it confirms our theory that WiFi is here to stay and it will be long until it will get replaced by a new wireless standard!
“India is emerging as a very important and exciting market for our members, both in-country and worldwide,” said Wi-Fi Alliance managing director Frank Hanzlik. “This paper details the wide range of opportunities there, from urban and rural broadband deployments, to product development, to services and software.” and can be found for free of charge download here!
A recent report by our contributor in India plunged us into disbelief as, he said, the country has a huge potential for wireless adoption but the stake is firm on GSM adoption. Eight concurrent mobile operators in Hyderabad and approximately 8.1 million people, India’s 5th largest metropolis, stays low on WiFi availability.
According to TechCrunch and CrunchGear, Microsoft filed an application for a new communications device. It’s supposed to use OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) and will probably be WiMax enabled. Nothing concrete right about now, but the release deadline has been set one month before Apple’s Inc. iPhone.
I believe you remember the news from Apple Inc. where they said that every Core 2 Duo Mac available on the market, sold or still on the shelf has the 802.11n standard capabilities, but in a locked status. Well, if you want to enable that, you will have to pay a small fee to Apple Inc. in order to download the patch, says AppleInsider.com. The fee is something around $4.99, and it’s supposedly bound by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Because of the Act, the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn’t finished delivering the product at that point.
Of course, you can always get on the waiting list for an Apple Airport Extreme, and wait for it to ship to your location, since it appears that the enabling patch is included with its software. That’s just $179.
Back at CES in the beginning of the week, ASUSTeK announced the release of the AiGuru S2, second version of their USB cordless internet phone. It’s supposed to be compatible with Skype, Windows Media Player, iTunes, and even Windows VISTA. Waiting to get my hands on one, I can only notice it has a keyboard… more specs on their news page.
If you happen to own an Internet Phone, or plan on buying the above mentioned, the nice people from Actiontec decided it was about time to release a router which will increase your Wi-Fi range to the n draft, all around your house, supports encryption standards and “all major carriers” whatever that means. Engadget wrote a full article on this here
Feed yourself!
This story was in my bookmarks folder for a few days now and I took no rush to publish it. I decided to chew up on it for a while to understand what it actually means. Since it’s all going to be in a paper you can purchase early June, I’ll get right to it and skip the details. 
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Telecoms Pricing Asia
use OFDM (orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing) and will probably be WiMax enabled. Nothing concrete right about now, but the release deadline has been set one month before Apple’s Inc. iPhone.