WiMAX updates

Recent WiMAX Announcements

Posted by samc on December 11th, 2007

Here’s a snapshot of some recent Mobile WiMAX announcements:

• Sprint plans to launch its XOHM WiMax network by the end of this week. Sprint spokesman John Polivka said the soft launches will cover the downtown cores of Chicago, Baltimore and Washington but will rapidly expand outward. This initial launch will be limited only to Sprint employees and will focus on the central downtown areas of the test cities. This initial set of trials precedes the actual full trial networks that will be available to the general public starting in the first quarter of 2008.

  The company reportedly has 10,000 base stations ready to go, many of them on Sprint’s existing CDMA cell towers. Sprint will expand the coverage to areas that see high demand. Sprint has ordered 1750 base stations from its three vendors (Motorola, Samsung and Nokia), as well as 20,000 antennas. The company did not provide details on what devices its employees will be using, nor what devices consumers can expect to use once the full trials get underway.

• Alvarion today announced that Altitude, a French nation-wide WiMAX operator will use Alvarion Mobile WiMAX 4Motion solution, in the 3.5 GHz frequency band, deployment throughout the region of Aveyron.

  Upon receiving regional-based WiMAX licenses, Altitude turned to Alvarion to provide corporate, ISP and residential users with Alvarion’s Mobile WiMAX technology. Implementation of the first phase of the contract has recently commenced and includes deployment throughout the region of Aveyron.

• Motorola announced an agreement with long-standing customer Mobilink to deploy a WiMAX 802.16e-2005 network in Pakistan. Motorola will design, plan, deploy and optimise a WiMAX network for Mobilink, and deliver integration and support services, as well as indoor and outdoor customer premises equipment. This is Motorola’s second WiMAX 802.16e network in Pakistan, with the first being a turnkey end-to-end nationwide WiMAX/IMS network awarded in 2006. This is also Motorola’s fourth commercial WiMAX deployment in the Middle East and Africa region.
• Russian fixed-line operator Comstar plans to develop the first mobile WiMax network in Russia with Intel. Comstar plans to use its 2.5-2.7Ghz spectrum footprint in the city to build the network and is targeting its commercial launch for late 2008. Comstar, which has 452,600 broadband Internet subscribers in Moscow, signed an agreement with Intel to develop a network first in Moscow then in other areas of Russia.

  Comstar and Intel intended to enable high penetration of laptops with embedded mobile WiMAX/Wi-Fi module. Comstar expects to invest “tens of millions of dollars” in the network construction in Moscow. “We count on a mass market and estimate that the average revenue per user will be $10-$20 per month,” said Comstar Vice-President Alexander Gorbunov.

• Beceem Communications announced interoperability with Sprint’s WiMAX infrastructure this week. Bin Shen, vice president, Broadband, for Sprint said, “The achievement is a very encouraging sign for the launch of our Xohm Mobile Broadband network and service in 2008, and we appreciate the tremendous support we are getting from Beceem in meeting these milestones.” Beceem says more than 10 commercial Mobile WiMAX devices have been designed around its BCS200 chipset, and will be shipping into Mobile WiMAX networks around the world in 2008. These products are primarily PC modems (USB dongles, PC cards, Express cards) and low-cost desktop modems.
• VSNL estimates an investment of about $500-600 million for rolling out WiMAX services in 35 cities across India over the next three years. It would launch the service in Bangalore and then cover other major cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad in the first phase. In the second phase, the company plans to reach to customers in about 35 cities across the country — mainly consisting of all the state capitals. India has recently allocated 2.5 GHz spectrum to be auctioned off to service providers like BSNL, Reliance, Tata Communications and Bharti in 2008, finally clearing the way for large scale- Mobile WiMAX deployments in India.
• Telsima today announced that it will be unveiling its Mobile WiMAX Base Station at the India Telecom 2007 show at New Delhi on Dec 12, 2007. The StarMAX 6400 Mobile WiMAX base station is operable with Telsima’s central provisioning system supporting high bandwidth Enterprise and Portable/Nomadic subscribers.
• The upper region of Normandy is getting WiMAX. By next month nearly all of the inhabitants of Seine Maritime will have access to the Internet using a wireless network comprised of 35 WiMAX base stations will provide broadband access throughout the region to some 14,000 homes. The network is also complemented with 73 WiFi antennas that extend access to municipal buildings.

  The network will be operated by HDRR using its 3.5 GHz WiMAX spectrum license. HDRR is a subsidiary of TDF Group, a French company that is one of the leading terrestrial broadcast service operators in Europe.

• Hong Kong’s Office of the Telecommunications Authority (“OFTA”) will accelerate the auction of 2.5 GHz spectrum to the fourth quarter of 2008, allowing for the introduction of WiMAX services to Hong Kong and its 426 square mile territory.

  Previously OFTA had said that the 2.5 GHz frequency band would not be auctioned until 2009 or 2010. The 2.5 GHz auction now will be combined with an auction of 2.3 GHz spectrum for Broadband Wireless Access Services (BWA), which already had been planned for Q4 2008.

Juniper Research in a new report forecasts that Mobile WiMAX will begin to take off from 2010 to 2013, exceeding 80 million mobile subscribers globally by 2013, with the top Mobile WiMAX markets being the USA, Japan and South Korea.

source : dailywireless.org