Sorry, I meant to say "NOT scrambling to build residential UL WiMAX CPE."
- Patrick -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Leary Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2006 8:50 AM To: 'WISPA General List' Subject: RE: [WISPA] UL WiMAX update Well George, ready for long answer that may not actually answer your question? I'd prefer to give you the full story. First,...so, is Alvarion building UL WiMAX? Of course, and I personally see lots of potential for it. When will it come? A few things are in line first, so there is no firm date but we'll have it roughly around the same time as other main suppliers. If I could give a better and more useful date, I would.UL Second, WiMAX is not a simple story. Here are the issues revolving around it: 1. 3650MHz is a better UL band for WiMAX than 5.8GHz: Vendors and operators know that this band is more favorable for a scaled BWA deployment than 5.8GHz for both reasons of physics, higher power allowances, and less interference. So far, the only UL profile for WiMAX is 5.725-5.850GHz. But most vendors are not eager to invest too much in that profile while 3650MHz is up in the air. If 3650MHz goes UL, as it most likely will, at least in part, then that would take the wind out of 5.8GHz WiMAX's sales and a new profile will have to be created to support 3650MHz. 2. The UL profile is limited to upper 5GHz only: The UL WiMAX profile excludes 5.25-5.35GHz, as well as 5.47-5.725GHz. That is 355MHz of spectrum that the WiMAX Forum so far does not support. Who wants to build a UL WiMAX network that only uses 5.8GHz? The profile needs to be broadened. 3. The scheduled MAC of 802.16 is designed for licensed: The reality is that the 802.16 MAC was originally developed for licensed LMDS bands. In order to push through a standard quickly, when 802.16 was amended to be applicable to sub-11GHz frequencies, they co-opted that same MAC. Now it's a great MAC...for licensed. Scheduled MAC's are highly efficient, but they are intended to be used in licensed where the only interference risks are self-inflicted. With a scheduler, when your slot comes to talk, you talk, regardless of what is happening in the spectrum. In the UL world where there is contention for the spectrum, a scheduler results in lost packets AND hurts the other systems already in the air. The IEEE knows this is a problem, so they formed a new task group about 9 months ago called 802.16h, or TG H. The charter of this task group is to come up with a mechanism that somehow enables UL co-existence of systems using shared (UL) spectrum. The idea of the TG is to find some type of technology neutral soft patch that can be overlaid atop not just any .16 device, but any 802.11, or even proprietary system. Alvarion chairs this TG. It is a tough nut, because we and the IEEE are trying to make this a joint TG with the 802.11 crowd, but so far the 802.11 groups in the IEEE refuse to joint. The challenge is that the TG can come with some super slick technique, maybe some time sharing mechanism, but unless other systems in the air adopt it, it will not be as effective as it would otherwise be. Suppliers are aware of all this and it adds to the reluctance to release UL WiMAX as it exists today. 4. The UL WiMAX profile was designed for PMP backhaul, NOT last mile access: Most may not be aware of this, but if you take note that the channelization options in the 5.8GHz UL profile are 10MHz and 20MHz, you come to realize that the intention is to make big pipes. Consider that the current efficiency of WiMAX is a bit better than 3.5Mbps NET usable throughput per megahertz used and you'll see that in UL WiMAX you can create pipes delivering over 70Mbps NET in a 20MHz channel. Then note that the last mile centric licensed profiles deal in 3.5MHz and 7MHz wide channels. You quickly begin to realize that UL WIMAX is intended for backhaul only, for things like mesh clouds, hotspots, and outdoor PMP enterprise bridging. What does this mean? This means that the market is scrambling to build residential CPE for UL WiMAX. Instead, the CPE will be that you would expect at the remote end of an enterprise bridge or backhaul. In other words, we are not talking about sub-$200 devices. 5. There will be no indoor only, self-install UL WiMAX CPE: Unlike licensed WiMAX, for which the power and bands are suitable to support a no-truck-roll CPE, we have no such luck in 5GHz. This leaves us with the same installation paradigm we live under today in the UL world. 6. UL WiMAX profile in only supported in the fixed WiMAX standard of 802.16-2004. There is no profile for 802.16e-2005: While we and a handful of others remain excited about fixed WiMAX, most of the large telecom suppliers are bypassing it entirely and going straight to 802.16e-2005. Now, and this is key, while the -2005 standard is about mobile, IT CAN be used also for fixed and it WILL be the basis of nomadic and portable (semi fixed, self-install) CPE. So that is where all the big R&D money is at now and vendors planning to participate in the main WiMAX market (the 802.16e-2005 world) have to invest to stay ahead. This makes 802.16-2004, and all the profiles that go along with it, including the UL profiles, a lesser priority, at least relative to 802.16e-2005. So the net result of all these issues is that the suppliers are cautious and not certain about the market size for UL WiMAX, or even who will be the big buyers. Is there a large enough market to drive down prices? Who knows, currently the main growth in the UL BWA market is happening at the Wi-Fi muniwireless level and there is a sense that this needs to play out, even while WiMAX may make a good PMP backhaul solution for those projects. I continue to hear that some vendors out there continue to say something like, "we have UL WiMAX just around the corner!" the fact is that as of the last WiMAX Forum meeting (in Paris last month), not a single vendor had yet submitted UL WiMAX product for certification testing. And keep in mind that it takes three to submit before any testing can even begin. I do not hear enough suppliers being blunt to WISPs and others about all these issues revolving around UL WiMAX and the WiMAX Forum itself needs to be more clear about the different types of WiMAX. Also, as operators you really have to ask yourself, what do I want out of UL WiMAX? Can you get that with other or current gear? Finally, when UL WiMAX product first hits the market, if it comes from a new entrant with no current customers to piss off, approach it with healthy skepticism and see if it addresses the issues put forth above. Heck, do that even if it comes from respectable long term players like us. Lastly, I'd advise that while you keep an eye out for progress on the UL WIMAX front, you continue to deploy and put your faith in current technology. From our end, solutions like BreezeACCESS VL are developed specifically for the UL world and they are mature (over 300,000 installed units) and ever improving. We will continue to invest in VL for the foreseeable future, including making sure it supports ALL the 5GHz ranges so operators have choice and can scale. And to lend weight to the "continue to invest" claim, we have a firmware version entering beta right now that will blow the doors off you. We have basically stripped it down and rebuilt it. Not only is it enabling a massive packet per second increase, but we have added a prioritization feature that allows an operator to prioritize certain types of traffic network wide. For example, it can be configured to let all voice (or video) traffic from all CPEs be transmitted first, with less time sensitive traffic like basic data released second. This is true no matter the users' placement geographically in the network -- on the edge or near the base station. At the same time, we have a starvation prevention algorithm to make sure other apps are not starved out. This all happens dynamically. We have tentative (lab) data showing this improves concurrent voice sessions per sector from 40'ish to over 250. We'll see how this plays out in our voice and video betas. In addition, we have added QinQ VPN ability, so individual clients can create secure VPN tunnel within an operators own VPNs. And there are a host of other new features. Obviously, this is the one example I can speak about with authority, but I am sure the other vendors will continue to invest and support their own current UL technologies for a long time to come. Regards, Patrick Leary AVP Marketing Alvarion, Inc. o: 650.314.2628 c: 760.580.0080 Vonage: 650.641.1243 -----Original Message----- From: George [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 5:52 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] Quick note of hello Welcome back Patrick How is Alvarion doing concerning UL WIMAX? George Patrick Leary wrote: > Hi all, > > > > I just wanted to drop you guys a note that I have re-subscribed after > being off the list for maybe two years. Hope all is well. > > > > Patrick Leary > > AVP Marketing > > Alvarion, Inc. > > o: 650.314.2628 > > c: 760.580.0080 > > Vonage: 650.641.1243 > > Skype: pleary > > > > -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
