Cisco

Cisco Beamforms Russia & Kazakhstan

Posted by Sam Churchill on February 11th, 2009

Cisco announced this week that AsiaBell launched its broadband Mobile WiMAX service in central Kazakhstan, based on Cisco’s Broadband Wireless gear including Cisco BWX 8300 beamforming access points and Cisco 7604 Routers.

• The service is offered under the brand “AERO” and is targeting an area with a population of 1 million people, including business as well as residential customers.
• Cisco’s BWX 8300 access points, Cisco 7604 Routers, Cisco ME 6500 Ethernet Switches and Cisco Catalyst ME 3750 Switches, Cisco AS5350XM Universal gateways, and Cisco ASA 5500 Series Adaptive Security Appliances were used. AsiaBell also offers subscribers Cisco modems for use with desktop and portable computers.
• AsiaBell chose Cisco’s Internet Protocol IP Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) network core, which was integrated with the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
• The Cisco BWX 8305 base stations provide Mobile WiMAX adaptive beamforming, designed to deliver excellent coverage and indoor penetration with fewer cell sites.

Cisco says it has been contracted build WiMax services in Kazakhstan, in Soviet Georgia and in Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg).

MagtiCom is deploying WiMAX services in Soviet Georgia. MagtiCom is also using Cisco’s BWX 8300 beamforming gear. MagtiCom is currently offering broadband Internet via WiMAX in the capital, Tbilisi, as well as in nine major cities across the country.

Scartel’s Yota system in Russia is already one of the largest Mobile WiMAX networks in the world and covers Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The operator already has invested about $200 million and expects that number will rise to $300 million.

Yota’s WiMAX system, unlike Kazakhstan, is using Samsung base stations exclusively. It is expected to have about 1,000 deployed by the end of 2008.

Yota’s Mobile WiMAX coverage in Russia was expected to be available to more than 20 million people at the end of 2008. Established in 2008, Yota is the first mobile WiMAX network in Russia.

Scartel is also planning to launch dual-mode GSM/WiMAX handsets in Moscow and St Petersburg.

The dual-band WiMAX handsets were created by HTC. Operating under the Yota brand, Scartel is emulating Clearwire/Sprint, taking advantage of the immature state of Russian 3G, says WiMAX Trends. In early 2010, Sprint is expected to launch a WiMax/CDMA/Wi-Fi smartphone running Android.

Other WiMax networks are being launched in various regions in Russia by Enfortas, Synterra, Start-Telecom, Comstar-UTS, and Media-Net. Summa Telecom Company, announced the launch of its own network,having been granted a large frequency resource across Russia. The first cities to be launched in are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Samara, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok. Summa Telecom is owned by Russian businessman Ziyavudinu Magomedov, whose principal businesses include oil transport logistics and metals.

Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) is the largest mobile operator in Russia and CIS with over 89.64 million subscribers. Vimpelcom, Russia’s 2nd largest cell operator, is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa Group and Norway’s Telenor which have been locked in a court battle over expansion overseas, something Russian shareholders contend was blocked by Telenor. The Russian State Commission of Radio Frequencies (GKRCh) plans to transfer 2300 ~ 2400 MHz (2.3 GHz) from the military to public WiMAX.

Today Intel arranged a teleconference with reporters to provide “news and progress” on WiMax deployments. While saying little that was new, company executives acknowledged that most of the action is outside the United States. Other nations, such as Japan, Russia, Korea, India and countries in Europe and Africa are moving aggressively to deploy the fourth-generation wireless communication and data service, according to Sean Maloney, executive VP for Intel. “It’s not about the United States,” he said.

The global economic crisis has slowed down WiMax expansion, says The Standard. Taiwanese WiMAX companies have narrowed while the UK 2.6 GHz auction has been bogged down in litigation.

But Cisco’s Mobile Forecast for 2008-2013, projects global mobile traffic to increase 66-fold between 2008 and 2013 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 131 percent.

Cisco says these projections reflect a transformation in the fourth-generation, or 4G, mobile Internet that will enable consumers to view more mobile video and access a variety of mobile broadband services.

Additional key findings include:

• Global mobile traffic will exceed two exabytes per month by 2013.
• Global mobile data traffic reached one exabyte per month in half the time that fixed data traffic did.
• Nearly 64 percent of the world’s mobile traffic will be video by 2013.
• Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 150 percent between 2008 and 2013.
• Mobile broadband handsets with higher than 3G speeds and laptop air or data cards will constitute more than 80 percent of global mobile traffic by 2013.
• Latin America will have the strongest mobile growth at 166 percent CAGR, followed by the Asia-Pacific region at 146 percent.
• Asia-Pacific will account for one-third of all mobile data traffic by 2013.

An exabyte is equal to: 1 billion gigabytes; 1,000 petabytes; 250 million DVDs

Currently, compelling applications for 3G include mobile TV, a light version of video conferencing, simple games and multimedia, MMS, SMS, email, and Internet browsing, says Cisco. But their Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, indicates 3.5G and higher and WiMAX technology categories will grow at a CAGR of 168 percent by 2013.

source: dailywireless.org