802 Camps Duke It Out
802.16 has time and Intel behind it. So where does that leave 802.20?
BY NANCY GOHRING
MARCH 15, 2004
WIRELESS WEEK
Nextel Communications' announcement that it is conducting a trial in the
Raleigh-Durham, N.C., market using a network built with Flarion gear has
thrown the spotlight on parallel and competitive standardization efforts
at IEEE.
Two groups, 802.16 and 802.20, are working on broadband wireless access
standards and both have courted Nextel. Some industry observers say that
ultimately the standard with the best chance of widespread success in
the market will be the one with the most marketing momentum.
Flarion, ArrayComm and others are involved in the 802.20 IEEE group,
which aims to create a standard network technology for mobile broadband
wireless access. At the same time, a separate IEEE group, 802.16,
already has built a standard for fixed broadband wireless access and is
working on an upgrade that will enable portability and mobility. The
802.16 effort has received much attention, in part due to chipmaking
giant Intel's involvement in the certification group backing 802.16, the
WiMax Forum.
Differentiators There is a handful of differences between the efforts.
The 802.20 group points to its focus on full mobility as a
differentiator. The standard will be designed to support high-speed
connectivity at client speeds as fast as 200 miles per hour, says Ronny
Haraldsvik, senior director of marketing for Flarion. "That's the key
differentiator with 802.16," she says. In addition, 802.20 will be
designed to operate in small chunks of spectrum. "If you look at the
spectrum that's suitable for wide area service, it tends to be available
only in small chunks," notes Marc Goldburg, chief technology officer of
ArrayComm. Spectrum lower on the band is the most ideal for wide area
and mobile networks but is largely used up, except for small portions,
he says. The 802.20 group is designing its standard to use those small
pieces of spectrum lower on the band.
By contrast, the 802.16 effort was largely focused on standardizing a
fixed network technology that could use wireless to compete with DSL and
cable modem access. But the ultimate vision changed as the effort
progressed. "The 802 committee decided there was a need for a mobile
wide area broadband system," Goldburg says. Some members of the 802.16
group wanted to add the mobility component to the work already done on
802.16. "But we also wanted to have an alternative approach that was not
restricted by legacy consideration and with the spectral efficiency
twist," Goldburg explains.
That's why the 802.20 effort began. And around the same time, the
802.16e effort got under way to add portability and mobility to the
802.16 standard.
Liability vs. benefit While the 802.20 leaders often consider the 802.16
effort to add mobility to a standard originally meant to be fixed to be
a liability, the 802.16 group sees it as a benefit. "The premise of
802.16e was to not reinvent the wheel like what 802.20 is doing," says
Dean Chang, a WiMax board member, the IEEE 802.16 publicity chair and
Aperto's director of product management.
Both camps say the other loses an important function by focusing on
either high mobility or high throughput. "Everyone wants high-speed, the
widest area range and high throughput," says Margaret LeBracque,
president and chair of the WiMax Forum and a marketing manager at Intel
Capital. "You generally don't get all three." In 802.16, the highest
priority is high throughput; in 802.20, mobility is the highest
priority.
Ultimately the market will decide which emphasis is most important and
at this stage market momentum may be more important than the technology.
The development of the 802.16 standard is furthur along than the
progress occurring in 802.20. The first iteration of 802.16, known as
802.16a, already has been finalized, and a revision to that, 802.16d, is
being worked on. The WiMax Forum expects to start certifying 802.16d
products later this year. Vendors expect chips to become available
mid-year, with products appearing at the end of this year or early next.
"802.20 is still in the early days," admits Goldburg. He says the 802.16
effort has been under way for about three years longer than the 802.20
initiative.
Some say the difference in progress could be 802.20's downfall. "Time is
of the essence so we can't really wait around to get the formal
standard," says Emmy Johnson, principal analyst with Skylight Research.
Instead of an official standard, she believes that perhaps the
technology of one vendor that is part of the 802.20 effort may become a
de facto standard.
In fact, Chang finds it difficult to even compare 802.16 and 802.20. The
802.20 group has defined general requirements, but the process of
drafting a standard could alter those requirements. "It's hard to talk
about because those [functional requirements] could change by the time a
draft comes out," he says.
LeBracque agrees. "The biggest thing about 802.20 is the unknown," she
says.
In addition to progress, the 802.16 initiative has some big names behind
it. "802.16 is favored by the fact that they have Intel behind it,"
says Daryl Schoolar, senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR, a sister company
to Wireless Week. "You don't always need the best technology. A lot of
time it's about what's marketed best. That's 802.16's real advantage
right now."
Bottom line But marketing power isn't successful unless an operator
actually buys the gear. While AT&T and Covad are members of the WiMax
Forum, no operator has stepped forward to say it will try or
commercially launch a network using 802.16, although supporters have
often pointed to Nextel as a potential user. In a recent report, Pyramid
Research says sources at Nextel confirmed that they are very interested
in 802.16 and that Nextel has made significant progress on a trial.
Even though Nextel is conducting a trial network with Flarion's gear,
that doesn't preclude it from trying and ultimately choosing WiMax,
Chang says.
--
"NEXTEL-1 IT'S NOT JUST NEXTEL"
Note The New address
Subscribe to Nextel-1: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL-1
"NEXTEL2 FOR iDEN SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS"
Subscribe to Nextel2: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/NEXTEL2
"WIRELESS FORUM HOMELAND SECURITY GROUP"
The Complete Resource for Wireless Homeland Security.
Subscribe to WFHSG: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/WFHSG
--
NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/
Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/
Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
