WiMAX Commentary Archive
:: WiMAX Commentary Archive ::
White space wait
By Rich Karpinski
We've been waiting out the FCC today, which finally voted yes to allow service providers to use the "white spaces" between already-used broadcast spectrum to deliver wireless data services....
Cox will revive FMC (if it knows what's good for it)
By Kevin Fitchard
We thought it might be Google, but it now looks like the newest mobile operator to emerge in the U.S. will be Cox Communications....
Telecom's Global Warming
By Peter Jarich
Over the past year, I've taken to calling mobile backhaul, "telecom's global warming." Why? Well, the similarities are striking....
Judging Bell Labs
By Kevin Fitchard
There has been a lot of media coverage in the last few weeks about the demise of fundamental physics research at Bell Labs....
Leading Verizon down the primrose path
By Joan Engebretson
If you want to get something done that requires the involvement of the FCC, it seems your best bet is to hope for a big merger....
3G – The Natural Follow-up to China’s Olympics
By Peter Jarich
Six years ago when we launched Current Analysis’s wireless infrastructure practice, Chinese 3G license allocations were talked about on a weekly basis; 3G allocations and deployments, we heard (from many different sources) were imminent. Those sources were wrong....
Does Google Matter?
By Alex Liu
Sweeping business trends always take much longer to materialize than initially prophesied...
Is 3G fast enough?
By Rich Karpinski
There's an interesting side issue at play this week as Apple launches its 3G iPhone: Is this bit of extra bandwidth really worth it?...
Defining the WiMAX subscriber
By Kevin Fitchard
30.75 million customers--that’s a lot. It’s the number Clearwire projects to have in 2017, but what does that really mean? Clearwire, through its tie-up with Sprint, Comcast, Google and a host of others, plans not only a nationwide WiMAX network, but a completely new business model, alien to the telecom industry today. And that business model implies that a subscriber on tomorrow’s 4G network won’t be the same as a subscriber on the 3G network of today...
Look! Up in the sky!
By Kermit Ross, Millennium Marketing
OPASTCO, a small telco trade association, just released a report forecasting that small telcos, on average, will lose 17% more access lines and 13% of their revenues between now and 2010...
Adieu, Arun Sarin
By Kevin Fitchard
Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin is retiring. After five years as head of the world’s most far-flung operator, the man believes his job is done. He may be right...
Who knew? 'Open' Web players turn to 'walled garden' models
By Rich Karpinski
Major Web players, so quick to be critical of the ‘closed’ telecom industry and its walled-garden approaches to services, are now turning to exactly the models it criticized -- even as they tout open user profiles and so-called data portability...
Why I like UMA
By Peter Jarich, Current Analysis
When I recently heard someone refer to the technology known as Unlicensed Mobile Access as if it were a woman’s first name, I couldn’t help but consider my own thoughts about the technology...
Who's open now?
Kevin Fitchard
When Verizon Wireless started talking open, I was suspicious. Traditionally, Verizon has maintained strict control over its mobile data services from what applications customers could access to how much data they could download over their broadband access plans partly to protect its customers, partly to protect its multibillion-dollar investment in 3G...
Carrier femtocell pricing doomed?
By Danny Briere, TeleChoice
I’ve been a proponent of the femtocell concept since the first rumblings of the concept came out of the startup community. We like femtocells -- everything about the topic. And really, what’s not to like about something that gives you a “five bar” wireless experience inside your home? ...
Five things you need to know about Sprint/Clearwire
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? ...
