Mobile broadband's uncertain path

America's Network,  Nov 15, 2004  

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Historians of wireless broadband have good reason to be skeptical at the confidence of the latest 3G and 4G plays. The list of failed wireless broadband operations (Metricom, Monet, Winstar etc.) is long and only exceeded by the number of niche wireless broadband vendors (Navini, Arraycomm, Flarion, IPWireless, Broadstorm) seeking to gain traction today from a finite group of start-ups and established prospects.

One of the most notable characteristics of the new wireless broadband uncertainty is that the players can't even agree who their competitors are. When TD-CDMA developer IPWireless learned that America's Network was planning this feature, it made repeated representations to be considered as an equal contender to Flarion and EV-DO. It certainly has a case--its technology has gone live in several international markets and apparently performs to specification.

However, the viewpoint is different at Flarion. Ronny Haraldsvik, global marketing vice president, says operators can only make decisions based on their individual spectrum holdings. Flash OFDM and EV-DO target the same operators because they use FDD paired 1.25 MHz spectrum, while the offerings of IPWireless target holders of TDD paired 10 Mhz spectrum--the domain of WCDMA operators--and operate at 1.9 GHz and 2.5 Ghz.

"For the most part, Flarion only comes up against EV-DO due to these spectrum and FDD choices," says Haraldsvik.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Questex Media Group, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning