I Can See CLEARly Now - Part II

"I can see clearly now that the rain has gone, I can see all the obstacles in my way..." Ray Charles

There's something deep about a blind guy seeing clearly ... deep. I finally saw Ray on DVD the other night, man, Jamie Fox earned that Best Actor Oscar, baby!

(Special Thanks to Bobby Mack at Momentum Online Internet and ERF Wireless Solutions for reminding me about the Ray Charles version of these Johnny Nash lyrics found on the The Harder They Come soundtrack).

Part I of this post (here) lays the groundwork for the analysis of this post, so I recommend you take the 10 minutes (5 for you speed readers) to read that post first.

Conclusions and Impact on the Clearwire/Sprint Merger follow.

I'm back to The 747 and Helicopter analysis, again and again. Inevitably, Broadband is about both Capacity and Mobility, so this analysis looks at the impact of the WiMAX strategy from both those perspectives. Clearwire has adopted a strategy that attempts to merge the massive bandwidth of capacity with the ubiquity and flexibility of mobility through the technology of mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e), so the impact of this move will be felt on both the wireline players and the wireless players.

Conclusions and Impacts

1. The rules of physics and RF mean that WiMAX is more limited than FTTH when it comes to capacity, less so when compared to Cable and DSL Broadband. Conclusion: WiMAX will bring more competitive pressure to bear on strategies that would seek to squeeze the last bit of value out of Cable and DSL broadband infrastructure, spurring on the drive to deploy FTTH.

WiMAX, Fiber, and Cable/DSL Broadband

A national WiMAX network will force the hand of Big Telco and Big Cable to invest further in 21st Century infrastructure (aka FTTH) if they are to hold on to customers and retain the subscriber revenue they depend on - see already how Comcast and Time Warner have joined the new Clearwire team (my guess is that this is only a part of their solution, with upgrades to their physical plant completing the strategy). Smaller Cablevision in the NE has opted to pursue Wi Fi Mesh in its service territory.

Verizon has a headstart on deploying a FTTH infrastructure, so their strategy has been vindicated somewhat by this latest move by Clearwire - I'm guessing that ATT is burning the midnight oil to re-evaluate its plans and develop new strategies to adapt to this new entry - many feel they have invested too little to date in fiber investments and I'm concluding that they will be more impacted by this new market entry than their rival Verizon.

The battle of these giants will take place first in the larger markets, the big cities and densely populated areas of the country. The entry of a larger, more robust Clearwire/Sprint will drive more competition in these markets sooner than we would otherwise see, which can be expected to spur on commercial adoption of mobile broadband applications and cultural acceptance and demand for access to high bandwidth mobile applications like video (why do you think the cable players and Brighthouse are in the mix?). After all, recent history has shown that in most cases, we tend to prefer pictures and sound over words, whether spoken or written - certainly, we value our video when it makes sense.

Those of us outside the major markets may have more time to adapt on a wire line basis, but will ultimately be impacted as well. WiMAX offers an alternative to DSL, Cable and FTTH, but there will be trade-offs - namely, fiber has a capacity advantage and WiMAX has a cost advantage. Fiber has virtually infinite capacity, while WiMAX is limited by both RF physics and the ability to allocate spectrum - this capacity advantage for FTTH won't go away over time. But FTTH costs far more to deploy. While the costs to block traffic, dig trenches, lay fiber duct, and pull fiber won't be going down, WiMAX equipment can be expected to improve in performance and drop in price, making it cheaper to deploy over time, extending the cost advantage of WiMAX.

2. WiMAX has advantages over Wi Fi Mesh and LTE when it comes to mobility, but those are balanced by certain disadvantages. Conclusion: WiMAX will not replace LTE or Wi Fi Mesh, but will lead to adaptations by the cellular wireless and wireless broadband industries to accommodate a larger, more lively playing field of options.

WiMAX and LTE

The very name says it all, doesn't it? Long-Term Evolution or LTE, is the cellular industry's plan to transition to an all IP network, someday. I mean, it practically screams for a competitor to come in and disrupt, doesn't it? And therein lies McCaw's advantage - plans for 3G and 4G have seemed to unfold at a glacial pace within the cellular industry. Granted, that's only when viewed from the outside, as the investment and complexity of making the shift from one generation of wireless communication technology to the next is not as simple as throwing a switch. Transition of both infrastructure and markets takes time and must be evolutionary.

But that is the opening that McCaw will use, as he enjoys the ability to move faster to gain an advantage on the leaders - Verizon Wireless, ATT Wireless, and their counterparts around the globe - by putting his money where his mouth is and starting his company early. This merger with Sprint, the increasingly frustrated and hapless third-place company in the US cellular industry, confirms the strength and validity of the threat Clearwire poses to LTE (4G). If WiMAX establishes a strong beachhead before 4G even launches, then the prize for 4G will be much less than expected, and the strategy of the cellular players will have to adapt.

But so big and powerful is the cellular economy, I wouldn't bet for a minute that WiMAX will be able to replace LTE. Still, we can expect significant influence, whether to accelerate expected bandwidth speeds, make the service more customer-friendly, or make service cheaper to consumers - in the end, more competition means that consumers will win.

WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh

By now, I have to give a hand to all the Wi Fi lovers in the reading audience...for I've saved this part for last...thanks for your patience!

The good news is that Wi Fi Mesh remains a valid technology for the markets and geographies and consumers that it was before this announcement. WiMAX is different from Wi Fi Mesh, and it makes sense to take a little time to examine those differences.

On the one hand, WiMAX has built on the IEEE success that Wi Fi enjoyed, going beyond the industry standardization of all the technical elements down to the branding level. Thank Intel and others for that.

I thank Tropos Networks co-founder Narasimha Chari for this great analogy.

"WiMAX is like a really bright light mounted on the highest point in the city." It shines down on the whole city, but there are pockets of shadow, where the light doesn't reach. And the users are a long way away from the access point, way up there on top of the skyscraper or water tower. It is simpler to deploy, has greater carrying capacity per node, and costs less for a system than does Wi Fi Mesh. But it brings a different value proposition to a city than does Wi Fi Mesh. The choice between these two technologies, if there is one, depends on the rationale for a wireless network, the project economics, and the business plan.

"Wi Fi Mesh, on the other hand, is like the streetlights on which its equipment is mounted." They cover the city with lights that are not as bright as a mega-bright light in the center of town, but their multiple points give the streetlight system more flexibility to direct light where it's needed most.

artifical moonlight.jpg

As an aside, in Austin, we had a system of "artificial moonlight" towers at the turn of the century, which was replaced by the more modern streetlight system over time. The original moonlight towers are now preserved as historical landmarks, odd anomalies that dot the downtown area.

Access Points. Wi Fi Mesh thus puts the access points much closer to each client device that they serve. The nature of RF is that the signal strength is stronger the closer the receiving device is to the access point, and less signal strength is required to transmit a message back to the access point if it is closer to the client device. There are fewer access points per system with WiMAX - advantage WiMAX. Wi Fi Mesh access points are easier to communicate with going up - advantage Wi Fi Mesh.

Coverage Area. One way to look at WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh is as two clouds that hover over an area, one a High Cloud (WiMAX) and one a Low Cloud (Wi Fi Mesh) - you can have both, or one, or the other. The nature of each technology is that the height at which a WiMAX access point is mounted will drive its coverage area, while Wi Fi Mesh access points need to mounted pretty uniformly at about 20 feet off the ground, and the number and dispersion rate of the access points will drive the coverage area.

Spectrum. WiMAX operates on licensed bands of spectrum, making it the preferred technology for carriers (and Clearwire is a carrier in every sense of the word). The advantage of licensed spectrum is that you know the resource will be there when you seek to use it. You can sue people if they interfere with your use of "your" spectrum license. But it costs money, man does it cost money. Wi Fi, on the other hand, has taken off in widespread consumer adoption, in large part, because it's cheap - first, it doesn't require a spectrum license. The advantage of unlicensed spectrum is that it is dirt cheap - low barrier to entry - at least in terms of getting started. The disadvantage is that once underway, you have higher operating costs, if you run into interference problems. You have to have a strategy for sharing use of the spectrum with others.

If you can work around the issues, it's golden. If you can't, it can be a pain in the ass. But it's a pain that many feel is more than offset by avoiding the need to buy a spectrum license. With 4.9 GHz Public Safety Wi Fi, you have the advantage of a licensed frequency that is available at no cost, but its use is limited to public safety. But that gives municipalities a strong reason to look hard and long at Wi Fi v. WiMAX.

Client side chipsets. WiMAX, because it is much newer, is way behind the curve in terms of consumer adoption. Any radio network system has both transmission and reception functions, and a two-way radio system like both WiMAX and Wi Fi Mesh incorporates that duality in both the network components (the access points) and the client devices. But the client devices in both technologies tend to have much less power than the access points, and that's where proximity comes in, which confers an advantage on Wi Fi: Wi Fi can upload data from client devices to the nearby access points more efficiently. A second advantage, perhaps the killer advantage, is that Wi Fi chipsets have reached a level of maturity and production levels have driven costs down to the point where it makes sense to embed Wi Fi technology in a variety of mobile devices, ranging from laptops, to cell phones, to music players, to game players, to digital cameras, to fixed video surveillance cameras, to police car light bars, to police car automated license plate readers - the list goes on and on. And that proliferation of Wi Fi Chips is a sustaining advantage that WiMAX will be up against, for the next decade or so, until such time as the cost of WiMAX client side chipsets comes down with widespread adoption and production increases.

It will take a long time for WiMAX to catch up, perhaps Wi Fi will be around for decades. It's hard to say, because the marketplace is at work now. Who knows how low the Wi Fi chip price will go and where they will wind up? I'm reminded of that first Casio Watch I saw in the early 1980s, with an LCD display, so long ago. They were expensive when they first came out, but soon, I was seeing clocks imbedded in giveaway pens at trade shows. And now, twenty-five years later, we have LCD HD TVs. Awesome. It took time, but the declining costs on LCD chips made this inevitable.

calculator-ballpoint-pen-HWK922LP.jpg

A similar pattern is progressing with LED lights, now showing up everywhere as production costs have dropped. From Christmas Lighting to hand-cranked survival flashlights (no batteries or light bulbs!), the future of lighting is more and more about LED and less about the revolutionary incandescent light bulb that Edison pioneered, which you have to admit, has had a helluva run.

So, back to reality, after that diversion on the cost digression of Wi Fi chips...my bottom line conclusions on the impact of a national WiMAX network follow.

Nothing but good, bring it on!

1. The advantages of WiMAX will drive it into the broadband conversation, both at the fixed and wireless levels.

2. The spending by Clearwire on infrastructure will not only force all players to adapt by moving more rapidly down the adoption curve and upgrading infrastructure, it will also stimulate the market to adopt wireless broadband applications faster.

3. WiMAX has a place in an integrated metropolitan area network (MAN), alongside FTTH, LTE, and Wi Fi Mesh (not to mention all the other flavors of wireless not covered in this analysis).

The Bottom Line

I believe that all four of these technologies will comprise an integrated broadband ecosystem when all is said and done, just as we now enjoy a highly integrated transportation infrastructure that readily accommodates a variety of technologies and infrastructures, interwoven to meet the different needs of the marketplace.

Society and the marketplace create forcing mechanisms that make the best new items mesh with the best of the old. Powerful interests can either delay the inevitable, buying time for an old technology as current cable and telecom incumbents have, or shoe-horning in new technologies, as Clearwire will attempt to do. They will battle it out, but the end result is a matter of when, not if. All technologies tend to be produced and introduced faster than society can adapt, so there is a lag between introduction and widespread adoption. Having the momentum of billions of investor dollars driving deployment of infrastructure and adoption of new technology is an accelerator of a natural trend, beyond being a catalyst to stimulate the process.

The Bottom, Bottom Line

WiMAX is at the very front end of the adoption curve, but it will find its role in time. That said, it will take longer than Clearwire thinks to accomplish Craig McCaw's dynamic vision of a national WiMAX network driving a mobile broadband society - I recommend that you take whatever time frame they give for ultimate deployment and double or triple it. But my hat's off to McCaw and the whole Clearwire team for trying, and I think we all will be the better for it. Now its time to get back to work!

Here are a couple of other viewpoints on Clearwire/Sprint: Agility Ventures and Light Reading. I agree. What they said.

Posted on May 15, 2008 at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

I Can See CLEARly Now - Part I

"Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind, it's gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sunshiney day" Jimmy Cliff

"Change occurs because there is a gap between what is and what should be." Craig McCaw

Since it was announced last week, I've been chewing on the impact of the Clearwire/Sprint merger (see Unstrung's analysis from Monday). So here's my preliminary stab at an assessment, no doubt to be followed by refinement over the coming weeks and months.

It seems fitting, that there was a tornado warning here in Central Texas last night, as major storms moved through the area, finally dumping massive amounts of rain about midnight last night. Now, the sky has that special clarity that only comes after a thorough cleansing, and the birds are chirping and its sunny all about this morning - and cool too, an amazing thing for May 15 in Central Texas. The after effects remind me of this Jimmy Cliff hit from long ago.

From its early beginnings back in October 2003, telecom icon Craig McCaw's Clearwire venture has been channeling Jimmy Cliff, at least in its public pronouncements. It's been all about leveraging McCaw's own clear vision on the potential of the convergence of broadband and wireless, as only he can see, as only he can do.

His past successes as a pioneer in cellular give credence to his still sketchy plan - all seem loathe to disbelieve the vision for a national WiMAX network, grandiose as it is and skeptical though they may be, given what he's accomplished already. It's the Halo Effect at work - quite a sight to behold. No doubt, McCaw understands the Halo Effect well and views it as but one more arrow in his quiver that he can use to accomplish his goals. He seems to be playing three-dimensional chess while the rest of us play checkers.

More after the jump.

Still, after all its many well-advertised growth stages, Clearwire remains more about potential than actual accomplishment. But few can argue with that potential, certainly not me. And that's what gets me excited - with Clearwire, we have a well-funded disruptive force that has - so far - very deftly maneuvered around the weaknesses of the entrenched incumbents. It's like McCaw plays corporate jujutsu, playing his opponents' strengths and energies against them, rather than countering them directly, and in so doing, turning those very strengths into weaknesses - very deft indeed.

It's not unlike the excitement we feel about Google or Apple, two companies that stand out as willing to take bold moves to force change to happen according to their own visions. The very act of being bold and being first confers an advantage, when the rest of the competition has been lulled into inaction, playing it safe to protect their lead. So, the potential for significant change becomes all the more real, all the more exciting when big players and innovators start to draw together, as happened this past week with the announcement of this string of companies working together - Clearwire, Sprint, Intel Capital, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks. It's not unlike what happened when Steve Jobs convinced the recording industry to play along and the iTunes/iPod revolution was launched, transforming music as we know it.

Like many of us, McCaw knows that the current broadband situation needs to change if we are to move forward and take advantage of the promise of technology - the difference is that McCaw not only has the vision, but also the ability to take action on that vision, aligning market forces to drive the needed change over the opposition of those who prefer the status quo. Where we have managed only to nip around the edges so far and innovate within our smaller spheres of influence, McCaw acts in a far larger sphere, indeed, the largest sphere of influence, actually bringing different industries together to drive the change that he envisions.

The big questions in our little niche industry of metropolitan broadband are "What are the odds of success for a nationwide WiMAX network? and what will be the consequences of a nationwide WiMAX network? and how will this vision impact our vision and plans?"

For my own analysis, I'm drawn again to history, to what we saw with the extension of transportation networks...from the early days of the Roman Empire, the technology of the roads they built were the foundation of connecting the disparate pieces of their own network of territories. When our forefathers realized what they had with this sprawling new nation, only gradually made clear as explorers brought back news from the west, the keys to pioneering the vast landscape were the networks they built, from the early canals in the east, largely made obsolete by the drive to build the railroad network later in the 19th Century. Midway through the 20th Century, Pres. Eisenhower promoted the construction of a national interstate highway system to connect the states, ostensibly for national defense reasons, much like the roads that connected the Roman Empire.

The introduction of air travel at the start of the 20th Century may have freed us from the limits of gravity and collapsed the notion of distance and time as an essential element of travel - and that proved over time to be game-changing - but innovations in air transportation did not eliminate the need for ground transportation. To the contrary, they only expanded the universe of options for moving goods and people across both long and short distances and increased travel put more pressure on the ground infrastructure over time.

We still don't have the personal hovercraft or helicopters I daydreamed about in my youth, as I paged through my dad's Popular Science magazines in the 1960s, because they proved to be impractical options in the face of more economic and reliable ground transportation options. At some point, vision meets reality and accommodations are made - the Possible must always yield in time to the Practical.

And what did we see as air travel unfolded in the 20th Century? A variety of technological innovations steadily improved the tools of air transport, and the infrastructure adapted to accommodate the new technologies. Airports connect with highway and rail transport networks to move people and goods. Rental car agencies, shuttle services and taxi cab lines provide ground transportation options once travelers disembark from their airplanes. And different types of air transport co-exist for different purposes, in an ecosystem that accommodates the needs of the marketplace (see The 747 and the Helicopter). It will be this way with broadband as the technology progresses and the infrastructure is built to adapt to market needs and technology options.

The conclusion I make from this little diversion through ground and air transportation history is that future networks tend to build on past networks, occasionally replacing them entirely over time (taken a trip on a canal lately?), but more often, improving on them with new technology and gradually making them obsolete and less valued, or giving them new value as a secondary solution, depending on the differential between the old and new solutions. Rail travel still thrives in Europe, and along the dense corridors of the NE US, and in dense cities where mass transit makes sense, but it has been almost wiped out in many parts of the US by our love of the automobile. My guess is rail may be on the upswing in the coming years, as some of the allure of personal freedom is offset by the high cost of energy, and efficiency becomes more attractive than convenience.

So, one thing we can conclude from the Clearwire vision is that the new national WiMAX network will not wipe out the existing networks - no need for panic or to wait in the hope that WiMAX will solve all your problems - the task to build a national network to match McCaw's vision will be so great, it will take several years for any significant impact to become evident.

But the mere threat of impact is already being incorporated into strategic planning and will provide slow movers the incentive they need to act faster than they otherwise would. This, my friends, is what a Catalyst looks like. It's a kick in the ass for all those who thought they had all the time in the world to bring about change, and told the rest of us just to be patient and we would see all good things come in time. We don't want to wait, and Craig McCaw knows that more than most.

My conclusions and impact analysis in the next post - sorry - this is taking too long!

Posted on May 15, 2008 at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

WiMAX + Wi Fi Mesh = Best of Both Worlds?

I stumbled across this pretty good little background piece tonight while surfing.

Light Reading - Broadband - WiMax, Wireless Mesh & Muni Networks - Telecom Report

It's from April of this year, which gives it a little separation from a lot of the negative press that started to creep into reporting on Wi Fi Mesh this summer.

I like this piece because it's pretty factual and would be a good introduction to this subject, and it ties Wi Fi Mesh and WiMAX together well, with good graphics, etc.

Especially among newcomers, it seems that there is considerable confusion between Wi Fi and WiMAX. Can't see why... Send them this link.

Posted on September 06, 2007 at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

WiMAX Rolls ... on down the road

Behind the wheel with WiMax In Vancouver, BC, a demosntration project showed the capability of almost-ready-for-prime-time Wi MAX. Seattle-based startup Adaptix Inc. outfitted a sport-utility vehicle with equipment to show what WiMax can do. How about streaming a video, making a phone call, and playing a video game, all at the same time (while rolling down the road at 40 mph)? No mention of chewing gum. Service dropped when the vehicle got a mile away from the access point, indicating its dependence on a robust network. This gives us a glimpse into the not-too-distant future of wireless broadband. It will be about a lot more than high-speed Internet access, that's for sure.

Posted on July 18, 2005 at 04:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WiMAX Update

This in-depth, if somewhat skeptical review in Mobile Pipeline of current events in WiMAX, After The Hype, Where Is WiMAX?, is a worthwhile read if only to sniff through some of the hype that is out there in the WiMAX world. Author Peter Rysavy, president of Rysavy Research, a consulting firm that specializes in wireless technology assessment and integration, concludes that fixed WiMAX is real and will be fast upon us with workable solutions. Rysavy stops just short of dismissing mobile WiMAX, on the other hand, as overhyped and not ready for prime time, but finally concludes that whether mobile WiMAX replaces 3G/4G, is integrated into 3G/4G, or finds a way to coexist with 3G/4G, it will be a fun show to watch in the coming years.

Posted on July 13, 2005 at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

WiMAX Resources

Intel WiMAX and mesh whitepaper

Intel WiMAX Houston County Georgia Case Study

WiMAX Forum Business Case

http://WiMAX.com, as the name would suggest, has a raft of information on the emerging technology of WiMAX. The site has a growing list of white papers on this subject, accessible through this link.

Go to the Tropos site to get
Open Standards for Broadband Wireless Networks: Wi-Fi to WiMAX or Download it here

Posted on May 20, 2005 at 12:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack