WiMAX Commentary Archive
:: WiMAX Commentary Archive ::
Five things you need to know about Sprint/Clearwire
By: By Rich Karpinski
The long-rumored deal is done. Sprint and Clearwire today formally combined their WiMAX businesses, aided by investments from Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks. Here’s what you need to know...
Wireless' Pivot point
By: By Sarah Reedy
The demise of Pivot, Sprint's joint venture with leading cable companies to offer subscribers wireless services, has had many ceding the market to telecom service providers...
Getting to the core of WiMAX performance
By: By Monica Paolini, Senza Fili Consulting
There is more to WiMAX networks than base stations and subscriber devices. The core network plays a crucial role in delivering the performance operators need...
Post-auction pandering
By: By Joan Engebretson
Scan the list of A and B Block winners in the recent 700 MHz auction and you’ll see a lot of familiar names from the Independent telecom industry...
Do we need a single 4G standard?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin on Wednesday called for the industry to rally around a single standard for 4G and warning that a new technology war would wreck havoc on an industry struggling to make sense of mobile broadband. He’s right in one sense, the duel between WiMAX and Long Term Evolution will create uncertainty and fragmentation, but Sarin doesn’t have much right to call...
One 4G standard? What a concept
By: By Carol Wilson
Vodafone's Arun Sarin only got a smattering of applause from the hundreds of people packed into the CTIA Keynote room this morning when he said the wireless industry needs to settle on one 4G standard and avoid dueling approaches to broadband access...
Staying one fix ahead of regulation
By: By Carol Wilson
LAS VEGAS--FCC Chairman Kevin Martin got it right when he said that the wireless industry is a victim of its own success. In his CTIA keynote speech today, Martin noted that consumer expectations for the wireless industry continue to grow...
Revamping the D Block
By: By Joan Engebretson
As we were putting this issue together, the 700 MHz auction came to an end, generating strong revenues except in the D Block, which was envisioned as...
Taking bets on alternative wireless
By: By Rich Karpinski
In next Monday’s print issue of Telephony, and online the same day, wireless editor Kevin Fitchard and I take an in-depth look at the momentum behind alternative wireless service provider models. But even as we closed up that story, the news on this front keeps on rolling in...
700 MHz winners beware
By: By Kevin Fitchard
CTIA is less than two weeks away, so it's high time we took a closer look at what we're in for at the year's biggest wireless event. We've already parsed the keynotes and covered a lot of the pre-show news. But what will the overall theme of the show be? What's the big hype? ...
CTIA in the sights
By: By Rich Karpinski
As the annual CTIA shindig approaches at the end of this month, Telephony is getting ready… so should you. To help you get prepared, our wireless editor Kevin Fitchard took a peak-ahead at planned CTIA keynote addresses at the show to try to divine what’s like to be in the air...
Bundling shifts from voice to data -- will it work?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
If you wanted any more proof that data is the future for wireless network operators, just look at the recent shift in so-called unlimited plans. Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile and, this week, Alltel have all unveiled unlimited voice plans for about 100 bucks a month...
Converging on an opportunity
By: By Paul Mankiewich, Alcatel-Lucent
As an industry, we see signs that the convergence of the Web, wireline and wireless networks is well underway. The next logical step is the delivery of content to all three screens – TV, PC and mobile device. What will this mean for the people who will use the services?...
Wireless access -- What a concept!
By: By John Celentano, Skyline Marketing
Quiet, low-key events often can have a big impact. Two weeks ago, TDS Telecom announced new WiMAX-based Internet high-speed data and voice services to 65,000 customers in Madison, Wis....
Scavenger Hunt: Barcelona
By: By Peter Jarich, Current Analysis
BARCELONA--If you’re reading this from somewhere other than Barcelona, there are only three possible explanations. (1) You’re not in the wireless industry; good for you. (2) You are in wireless, but following the show from afar; good for you. (3) You missed the memo about 3GSM changing its name to Mobile World Congress (MWC); you might want to start looking for a new job...
700 MHz: Will the D block lie dormant?
By: By Kevin Fitchard
There’s still a long way to go before the 700 MHz auction concludes, but after 11 straight rounds with no bids on the public-safety/commercial shared license, it’s only fair to start asking the obvious question: What happens if the no one else bids on the D-block license?...
Playing the open game
By: By Kevin Fitchard
Did you hear the news? AT&T has an open network -- it’s had it for years. And it can’t quite see what the fuss is about when Verizon Wireless announced it plans to open up...
Parsing the players in 700 MHz
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The 700 MHz auction may prove to be one of the most contentious wireless auctions in history. It has certainly proved to be one of the most controversial...
WiMAX follows muni Wi-Fi down slow-go path
By: By Rich Karpinski
Big news in the WiMAX market this week as Sprint and Clearwire cancelled a joint venture to build a nationwide WiMAX network. Each plan to go it alone, they claim, but with Sprint facing corporate headaches and Clearwire limited in its ability to quickly find new partners, the goal of nationwide WiMAX undoubtedly took a hit...
Open letter to Sprint: Don’t give up on WiMAX
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The news last week that Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMAX venture has sputtered sent Clearwire into a stock freefall and has many media outlets questioning Sprint’s dedication to its pet technology. The big question everyone is asking is whether Sprint’s ambitious plans to launch Xohm nationwide are being scrapped...
Who will win the wireless wars?
By: By John Celentano
New wireless access technologies are arriving with the promise of anywhere, anytime high-speed Internet access. Led by WiMAX, these technologies can provide connections to customers where wired and conventional cellular networks come up short...
What the ITU means to you
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The International Telecommunication Union last week put the seal of approval on WiMAX, accepting the technology into the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards. The deal has little impact on North America since U.S. and Canadian regulators don't follow the ITU's cues. But there are bigger machinations at work here...
AT&T and WiMAX
By: By Kevin Fitchard
The latest little nugget of speculation circling the industry is that AT&T is about to launch WiMAX services in the near future, something I admit would be a distinct possibility, though the story would be a lot less exciting than it sounds...
Keeping an open mind
By: By David Waite
In the upcoming 700 MHz auction, the FCC is mandating that 22 MHz of spectrum be allocated to allow, with certain constraints, open access to applications and devices...
Still crazy after all these years?
By: By Carol Wilson
I first met Victor Schnee in the early 1990s, when he was proposed the then-outrageous idea that the incumbent telephone companies should be divided into separate retail and wholesale units. This was not even the first of his wild thinking -- in 1976, he and co-author Walter Gorkiewicz had forecast the breakup of AT&T in a massive study, “The Future of AT&T.”...
