About WiMax technology & prospect

Here is a good introduction to WiMax.

The prospect of WiMax is definitely good. It is expected that Total Asia Pacific WiMAX Service Subscribers Expected To Reach 13.98 Million In 2011

WiMax deployment status in Malaysia: 20 July 2006

The Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC) received 17 submissions for the controversial 2.3GHz broadband wireless access spectrum – commonly known as WiMax – tender exercise but will only evaluate the applications after addressing the concerns of the government.

The MCMC said this in a statement after Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik called for a tender recall, alleging that the commission did not follow the ministry’s specifications for the tender bid.

Read more on the details at theStar

The 17 applicants was Telekom Malaysia Bhd, Maxis Communications Bhd, MiTV Corp Bhd, DiGi.Com Bhd, NasionCom Sdn Bhd, REDtone-CNX Broadband Sdn Bhd, MIB Comm Sdn Bhd (controlled by Mesdaq Market leader Green Packet Bhd), Jaring Communications Sdn Bhd, Asiaspace dotcom Sdn Bhd, Celcom Timur (Sabah) Sdn Bhd, Fibrecomm Network (M) Sdn Bhd, SGR Capital Sdn Bhd, GO Lightspeed Broadband Sdn Bhd, Bizsurf (M) Sdn Bhd, IP Mobility Sdn Bhd, Optical Communications Engineering Sdn Bhd and Electcoms Wireless Sdn Bhd.

Potential of WiFi Broadband Wireless Access (BWA)

Although recently WiMax has received much attention, but I do feel that the potential of WiFi has not been fully exploited. Refer to theStar for an article on the potential of WiFi.

With the introduction of WiFi mesh, I have no doubt that it would definitely promote further the exploitation of WiFi for BWA.

Let's read an anticle on the advantages of using WiFi mesh for provisioning of BWA.

Green Packet's last mile wireless solution

Re: theStar

Currently, the only company with last mile connection is Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), which owns this facility through its fixed phone lines to homes and offices.

However, Green Packet, a Malaysian high tech company, will soon offer competition to TM’s Streamyx Internet service. The company has developed a product called SONmetro. This technology offers high speed, affordable wireless access to “the last mile,”

While there are other technologies for wireless broadband access, Green Packet is convinced its product offers higher speed Internet access at an affordable price. Putting its money where its mouth is, it will soon network Klang Valley to its wireless Internet facilities.

The company will start to deploy its SONmetro infrastructure next month (Aug 2006) and launch the service possibly before year-end (2006). It will extend the network to other towns in a later phase.

At the same time, Green Packet is scheduled to set up a similar wireless Internet network in Bahrain, to be followed by Saudi Arabia and Dubai next year.

2nd 3G licence award in Malaysia March 2006

In the second 3G licence award by MCMC, the winners are

• TTdotCom Sdn Bhd and
  
• MiTV Corp Sdn Bhd

The loser was

• DiGi.Com Bhd

Digi is the third largest mobile operator in the country, which many people had expected to be the frontrunner for the spectrum. However, the decision of MCMC has caused a big surprise to the public. One of the possible reasons that Digi was not successfull is probably it does not offer much difference in terms of evolution of services and network as compared with existing 3G license holders (Maxis and TM).

As for MiTV, it has abondon of content which is lacking in Maxis and TM. This may be an appealing factor for this company.

Meanwhile, TTdotCom – a unit of Time dotCom Bhd in which Khazanah Nasional Bhd has a stake – gets a new lease of life and it plans to use the 3G spectrum to roll out broadband services.

Point to point directional antenna alignment

During a recent consultancy work, I faced a problem in getting good antenna alignment.
I was reported that the packet error is very low or zero, latency is high (a few hundred ms), but very low throughput. The SNR is about 10dB.
The most possible reason: distance too far (1km in this experiment with IEEE 802.11a). However, if this is the case, the packet error should be high. But, may be due to no or minimum connection.
In addition, given the fact that antenna beamwidth = 30 degree. The alignment should not be too critical. If I move closer I can get higher SNR or throughput, then that may be the problem is due to distant too long.

Here is a practical procedure that I am going to try.

WiFi Mesh Routers Design and Development Company in Malaysia

While chairing a technical seminar, I came to realise that a local company in Malaysia is also doing R&D in WiFi Mesh: Actinium Network. According to its official website, Actinium Network Sdn. Bhd. is a research & development company, MSC status company that focuses on design and development of embedded system, and wired/wireless solutions. In fact, they already have products in the market all over the world.

Chatting with their CTO, I found that we shared a common view on the positive prospect of WiFi mesh products, in particular in the provisioning of low cost broadband wireless solution.

First WiMAX certified products : Jan 2006

WiMAX Forum Announces First WiMAX Forum Certified Products
The WiMAX Forum revealed the first companies and products to complete certification and interoperability testing, including Aperto Networks' PacketMAX 5000 base station, Redline Communications' RedMAX AN-100U base station, SEQUANS Communications' SQN2010 SoC base station solution, and Wavesat's miniMAX customer premise equipment (CPE) solution.

About one year ago, the price was about US15,000 for one pair of BS+CPE. This is definitely too high for pervasive broadband wireless access. Hope fully with the more certified WiMAX products, the price will drop very fast. Meanwhile, I am also looking forward to the incorporation of WiMAX chip into notebooks which will make to CPE price much affordable for end users.

3G market expected to expand soon with more phone models

Celcom expects that its subsbriber base will increase very soon from current 20K to 150K by end of next year with the coming of more 3G phone models with much more affordable price.

A survey conducted by MCMC in 2004 showed that 75% of subscribers spent less than RM100 per month. It is yet to see what kind of applications would really attract people to use the costly 3G services.

VDSL Network Sdn Bhd uses VDSL-FSO

VDSL Network Sdn Bhd (VDSL) has teamed up with a US-based technology partner Cyjaya to provide very high-speed broadband access in the country and is working on a rollout plan for the service in the Klang Valley next year.

VDSL would build its own network infrastructure using VDSL-FSO (very high bit rate digital subscriber line - free space optics) technology.

The advantage of this technology is that the time needed to set up the network is much faster as it operates based on, among other things, ABLFSO (air blown lambda fibre space optic) technology for its backbone infrastructure and even in some cases, wireless broadband for last mile connectivity to the consumer.

2nd round of 3G license bidding

After much anticipation, we saw only 3 companies applying for 3G licences in this second round of bidding. According to MCMC, the three companies are:
i) DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd,
ii) TT Dotcom Sdn Bhd, and
iii) MiTV Corporation Sdn Bhd

Mesh Network Market continues to grow

Recent study by ABI Research shows that Mesh Network Market May See Tenfold Growth In Five Years.

However, it is worth taking note that according to this new study from ABI Research, the increase will mostly come from deployments by alternative service providers and municipalities, rather than incumbent service providers. There will also be some "campus" style deployments in academic, corporate and resort environments, as well as temporary rollouts at conferences or fairs.

A major problem that would have to be worry by incumbent service providers is the Quality of Service (QoS). Can they guarantee the QoS in the presence of large number of existing WLAN users in the same vicinity?

Green Packet Bhd

Green Packet Bhd, a homegrown mobile software technology provider, has won a contract to supply its 3G Mobile Data Solution to Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd, Taiwan's second-largest mobile operator. It enables mobile devices to roam between Wireless local area networks and cellular mobile networks without interrupting Internet Protocol-sensitive applications. Refer thestar.

Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) equipment market expanding

"From 2004 through 2009, the market for WMN access points is expected to grow from $33.5 million to $974.3 million, the high-tech market research firm says.", reported by In-Stat.

WiMAX companies progress as planned

In August, Airspan Networks, Aperto Networks, Proxim, Sequans and Wavesat delivered their respective WiMAX solutions to Cetecom Labs, in Malaga, Spain, for conformance and interoperability testing.
Once the testing is completed, the WiMAX products will emerge in the market very soon.
Read more here.

Statistics of Telecommunication in Malaysia, Nov 2005

Here is the latest statistics about telecommunication industry in Malaysia (from the STAR).
The original source should be from MCMC.

TM Net introduces WiMAX in Q3 2006

Sometime ago I read that NasionCom is going to introduce wireless broadband using WiMax technologies very soon. However, not much news has been heard since then.

It is glad to hear that another company in Malaysia, namely TM Net Sdn Bhd, is planning to introduce wireless broadband to area with little or no wireline service.

According to the news from the STAR.

TM Net is working closely with Intel and Alcatel. Meanwhile, to my knowledge, Intel is currently planning to conduct trial in Putrajaya and Cyberjaya area. The equipment used is so called pre-WiMAX equipment as there is no certified product in the market at the moment.

The certification process only begin mid of 2005, thus, it is expected that certified WiMAX product would only be widely available in 2006. At the moment, the price of pre-WiMAX transceiver + baseband unit is quite expensive, generally in the range of RM20K to RM40K per unit. However, it is still consider competative in some circumstances when compared with the cost of provisioning of ADSL services.
Refer to my research paper in IEEE VTC 2005 Fall

"Study on the issue of provisioning broadband services: The case of Malaysia" for more details.
However, its advantages as compared to WiFi mesh is still yet to be proven.

802.11n standard could be delayed until mid-2007

The real data throughput of 802.11n is expected to reach a 540 Mbit/s and also offer a better operating distance than current networks. This is made possible by using multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and OFDM.

While hoping that existing two industry groups, WWiSE and TGn Sync, to harmonise and consolidate their proposal into a single proposal, rumous spread that "four major companies -- Broadcom, Intel, Atheros and Marvell, holding the lion's share of the Wi-Fi chipset market -- have formed a third camp with the aim of writing a whole new proposal.",

Industry observers have called this an offensive gambit aimed at Airgo Networks, an emerging chipmaker, to be forced it to a fundamental redesign.

Read more from WirelessDesignOnline.

Moral of the story:
poor people is alway difficult to play game with rich people who can alway show hand and this poor one just could not follow but give up

Broadband wireless access

A company with core business in fibre optic communication approached me to provide advice on venturing into wireless access business yesterday.

The company has set up its optical backbone network, FTTC for condo, apartment in PJ and Penang. This is the right move for them. In fact Korean is using this model. The price for a 2Mbps uplink and downlink is only RM60. I think many people will want to go for it. Expecially, many people have fade up with the exisitng incumbant ISP.

It is also wise to look into tappinng the advantages of Wireless, where access to user to convenient, fast, and with mobility. Sound interesting in this combination of FTTC + Wireless. I suggest to them to use WiFi mesh which can provide coverage extension, a business model proposed for WiFi mesh.