WiMAX’s Moment

When the FCC auctions off the 700MHz airwaves Jan. 16, there will be a lot of would-be service provider powerhouses hoping to snag a piece of the action. Industry watchers are expecting many of the winners to use WiMAX to take full advantage of the spectrum’s advantageous propagation char-acteristics.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein has called the event a “game-changer,” an auction that finally will allow the entry of new, nationwide alterna-tives to the RBOC-cableco hegemony. The airwaves, cleared by the transition from analog to digital television, are low frequency with large waves that penetrate through walls and other obstacles, with a range two-to-three-times further than the 2GHz band. That reduces the number of base stations needed, eliminating the need for repeaters and femtocells, and significantly decreasing the capex outlay needed to build a network. When paired with Wi-MAX, that results in a wide-ranging, all-IP, QoS-ready standardized broadband network.

“OFDM/MIMO access, regardless of band, is the future,” says Danny Locklear, director of wireless product marketing at Nortel Networks Ltd. “The cost profile, the efficiency of being able to have a flat, all-IP architecture, all of that provides a significant advantage for new entrants to compete. But the 700MHz paired with that has huge business case benefits because of the lower buildout costs.”

As for what the networks will be used for, it’s anyone’s guess. WiMAX is a perfect candidate to bring an alternative to DSL, cable modems or even T1s and to offer broadband to rural areas, says Jim Orr, principal network architect at Fujitsu Network Communications, which has not yet announced whether it will spend resources to build a 700MHz WiMAX product. Some players may be looking for the quad play. And there also are some dark horses in the race for 700MHz. Google, for instance, says it’s prepared to spend $4.6 billion on the licenses, presumably to create the mobile open-access Internet it has been championing. Google already is active in the WiMAX arena thanks to a deal it cut with Sprint and Clearwire Corp. to provide portal development for the companies’ mobile WiMAX initiative in the 2.5GHz band. “It will be very interesting to see who comes to the table,” Orr says. “Take the automotive in-dustry, for instance. There is a potential for a nationwide OnStar replacement, so cars will be much more communicative than they are now.”

Some of the FCC’s auction rules will guide how the networks are used. One of the chunks available carries mandates with it to provide open device and software access — that means no more devices being “locked” to a certain provider, and no more walled gardens. Another nationwide chunk, meant to be bought by a single company, requires that the winner build out a national public safety network in addition to one for commercial use. WiMAX could act as a standardized national public safety network to support interoperable applications across departments and municipalities, avoiding the communications breakdowns that plagued first responders during Katrina and 9/11. “There is a significant opportunity for WiMAX here,” says Orr. Unlike other technologies, “it’s standardized, and repeatable, and plays nicely nationwide, rural or urban.”

The 700MHz band is encompassed in the under-one-GHz program within the WiMAX Forum, and there are not yet implementation profiles for it against which to test for interoperability and start a certification process for equipment. “WiMAX is going to be a technology that plays out in the 700MHz band,” says Locklear. “There are already ongoing discussions within the forum as to whether to encourage a certification process. It’s definitely on people’s minds.” Nonetheless, Orr says it’s unlikely an implementation profile will be forthcoming until 700MHz becomes more global. That’s something that could happen as other countries clear their analog TV bands.

Orr says it won’t constrict the market. “Certification is beneficial when you’re dealing with multiple service providers around the globe,” he notes. “For a single self-contained network, it’s not that critical. Sprint, for example, is on [its] way out the door with mobile WiMAX before the profile is even gelled.”

The bottom line, he adds, is that “this is the last, best hope for building a wide-coverage, high-performance data network cost effectively,” says Orr.

700MHz at a Glance

Here’s a rundown of what’s on the table for the upcoming auction:

• A nationwide 10MHz paired block carries with it a mandate to provide a public safety network in addition to any private use
• A 22MHz paired block is divided into 12 regional licenses that have open device and software mandates
• A 12MHz paired block of 734 metro area licenses
• An economic area block of 176 licenses, 12MHz paired
• An economic area block of 176 licenses, 6MHz unpaired

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