Wimax's passage to Bangkok

The Wimax World Asia event took place in Bangkok last week. Emerging markets were recurring theme, with Wimax touted as a way to bridge the digital divide. Speakers from Tata Communications (India), PacketOne, REDtone (both of Malaysia) and Telkom (Indonesia) were on hand to share their experiences and plans for rolling out Wimax.

Another recurring theme was the importance of a voice component to any Wimax rollout. Sunil Kumar, marketing director for Beceem Communications, told Wireless Asia that low-ARPU markets in particular will need voice ARPUs as well as data to make money. Kevin Suitor, VP for marketing and business development for Redline Communications, put it even more strongly: "If you were a Wimax operator and you didn't embrace a double play of voice and data, odds are you don't exist now."

Yet another hot topic: mobile internet devices (MIDs), which tackle the device issue for wireless broadband by proposing devices that bridge the form-factor and performance gaps between handsets and laptops. Chunghwa Telecom senior VP Dr Minsky Luo touted his company's mTube device, which supports Wi-Fi and Wimax, while Karl Weaver, president of Newport Technologies, said that neither the handset nor popular devices like PNDs were the end-all form factor for mobile broadband, but added the evolution of form factors could well vary from market to market based on local needs and cultural expectations.

It wasn't all gravy for Wimax proponents, however - Garth Freeman, CEO of Australia's Buzz Broadband, delivered a scathing condemnation of mobile Wimax, which Buzz deployed for its service in Hervey Bay. In a presentation, Freeman blasted mobile Wimax on issues ranging from non-line of sight past two kilometers to poor latency and indoor coverage, and added the company had already abandoned Wimax completely in favor of a mix of technologies, including Wireless DOCSIS, Wi-Fi and TD-CDMA.

Freeman didn't make clear whether the fault lay in the Wimax standard overall, the specific products (supplied by AirSpan), the types of services offered or the service area's topology. Maurie Dobbin - managing director of TeleResources Engineering Australia, who also moderated the session in which Freeman spoke - commented that any operator deploying any technology "need to do due diligence on vendors' claims, talk to people without the vendor present and find out what their real-world experience is".

In other Wimax news for the week, Motorola said it has successfully completed the first mobile Wimax trial in Thailand after teaming up with local firm United Information Highway, while Redline announced that Cambodia's CityLink is deploying a Wimax network in multiple cities using its Wimax gear.

Wi-Fi was also in the spotlight during the week, though not necessarily in a positive way. Staccato Communications, a member of the WiMedia Alliance, published an article claiming that using Wi-Fi instead of UWB to boost the data transfer speed for Bluetooth - which the Bluetooth SIG announced plans to pursue last month - would cause interference to nearby Wimax and cellular devices.

Meanwhile, Intel has reportedly found a way to stretch a Wi-Fi signal from 100 meters to 60 miles.

Teknologi Wimax Sudah Bisa Dinikmati

The communication system of wireless data communications technology, or wide band
broadband wireless access (BWA) WiMAX can be enjoyed in
limited. Not long before the public can enjoy internet services
This cheap and good quality.
As disclosed information technology experts, Onno W. Purbo, in
seminars and workshops on WiMAX at the Nation Institute of Technology Expectations
(ITHB) Bandung, Saturday (6 / 2), members of the Indonesian Amateur Radio Organisation
(ORARI) can enjoy this sophisticated communications technology.
"Today Wimax is already used, ie by the operator the winning bidder, also
ORARI. ORARI members may wear this as long as there is no channel operator
who use them. Thus, the use by ORARI secondary nature, "
Onno said in the seminar.
According to him, the use of Wimax by the members of this is legitimate because ORARI
regulated by law. For members ORARI, is certainly to be heard
happy. That's because until now has not operated officially Wimax
commercially in Indonesia.
"Which is more profitable, operators must pay a Rp 100 billion to
government to be able to operate WiMAX. Well, maximum flexibility, in ORARI enough
pay USD 50 000 per year for membership only. Anyone interested? "
he said the majority of participants who made these students more curious
with the advantages of Wimax.
On this occasion, the organizers invited PT Daya Tunggal Hariff
Engineering as one of the WiMAX vendors in the country to perform
Wimax demo workings. In this demo from the employee explaining Hariff
stages, from the installation of customer premise equipment (CPE), which means
white box-shaped measuring about 20 x 20 cm, which will be owned
consumers, then setting up Wimax configuration with a virtual tool
LAN, up to how direct the CPE signal to the base station (base
transmission).
Although the estimated price of WiMAX access service is much cheaper than
cellular telephone service or other Internet connection system, he asked
people do not get your hopes up high for the quality network.
Reality-speed data access in WiMAX service is only 70-10 megabytes per
second (mbps). In fact, previous digembor rant, access speed
Wimax 50-70 mbps. "In Hariff, capability of the device can actually achieve that
(70 mbps), but the government limits. Maybe think our society
too shallow (read: simple) use it only for chat and
Facebook, "she said a little joke.
Direct Impressions
With this condition, he doubted could be quite sufficient for Wimax services
multimedia. On this occasion ITHB Information Technology lecturer, stumps
Arif Nugroho, had great hopes will be Wimax.
"With WiMAX, then we, the public, can directly present the news
live (direct) considering a large network and good quality. Not
longer need to use satellite news gathering (SNG) that are expensive and
possesses only television station that, "he said.
However, he is optimistic the presence of Wimax technology will accelerate
growth of industrial technology manufacturing industries in the country. "Wimax
has so far been delayed awaiting the Homeland industry. Contents
in the country's required minimum of 40 percent, "he said. (jon)