Martin Suter's Blog  

Martin Suter
BelAir Networks

Having been on the bleeding edge of wireless for the past nine years, it is gratifying to finally see a major market disruption move from the theory to reality.

I have noticed that the industry is largely clustered around two ends of the spectrum (no pun intended). There are the “cellular” guys, who maintain that licensed spectrum, cell towers, and complex cell planning are all required to deliver robust, wireless service to their subscribers. And there are the “enterprise” guys, who have embraced unlicensed spectrum, low-cost APs, and ad-hoc deployments to deliver wireless service to their clients.

But finally, the line is blurring.

It is now impossible to deny that one can deliver superior customer performance at a fraction of the cost using Wi-Fi. There are very interesting upload, download and latency figures based on millions of worldwide SpeedTests. Their conclusion: “Overall, we found that Worldwide 3G average download speeds to be 956 Kbit/s versus upload speeds of 153 Kbit/s and a 484 ms latency. This compares to average free Wi-Fi network speeds of 2,502 Kbit/s download, 774 Kbit/s upload, and 205 ms latency clearly demonstrating the superiority of Wi-Fi network performance. See our summary chart for additional details...”

Leaders in the cable industry are now moving rapidly into delivering a quad play for their subscribers. Cablevision, a leading MSO, is rolling out a reported 18,000 outdoor access points across its footprint in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Why? Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier is moving into Cablevision territory with its own home Internet and content delivery called FiOS. So, unencumbered by the need to purchase expensive spectrum, or the burden that handset subsidies place on carriers, Cablevision has changed the rules of the game. And how are they doing head-to-head? According to a report from market research firm Dell'Oro Group, “Optimum Wi-Fi contributed to “more than 70 percent sequential growth” in Cablevision's net subscriber additions in the fourth quarter of 2008, “a rate higher than any other cable operator in North America.”

And others, like Comcast, have begun rolling out their own trials.

Embracing disruption, just as they did with VoIP only a few short years ago.

In the United States, AT&T is a great example of a traditional wireless carrier that “gets it.” Faced with the challenges brought on by the success of the iPhone and the stresses the mobile Internet were placing on its 3G network, AT&T went out and added wireless data capacity nationally by spending $275 million to acquire Wayport. This gave AT&T an instant data network capacity upgrade at 20,000 locations where people congregate across the country. And are they done? Not if you listen to Greg Williams: “You can think of Wi-Fi as a giant offload point for wireless data traffic. Look at the growth in smartphones and data traffic, and it’s pretty clear that Wi-Fi can be a real plus to AT&T.”

An interesting contrast is Verizon, where the old school cellular perspective has meant clinging to the status quo. Recently, this manifested itself in their signing an exclusive deal with RIM for the Blackberry Storm that shipped without Wi-Fi. The blogosphere lit up over this, as people revolted over not being able to leverage Wi-Fi, even at home or the office.

In the face of competition, leading cable companies see Wi-Fi as an opportunity to deliver a true Quad Play for their subscribers. (In fact, my colleague, Dave Park, will be discussing that topic at a few upcoming events including The Cable Show, NAB and a webcast).

AT&T sees Wi-Fi as an opportunity to add low-cost data capacity at better than 3G data rates.

Verizon sees Wi-Fi as a threat and doesn’t even allow it on a cool, new Blackberry.

Which are the disruptors and which will be the disrupted?

That’s my .02!

Martin Suter

Martin Suter is vice president of business development at BelAir Networks, a provider of broadband mesh solutions for Wi-Fi, WiMAX, 4.9 GHz Public Safety and 5.9 GHz ITS networks. Previously, Martin was the CEO at Cohda Wireless, where he raised the company’s profile and negotiated a licensing deal with a Fortune 100 vendor in its core franchise. Prior to Cohda, he was vice president of business development at MeshNetworks Inc., a classic tech transfer/disruptive technology success story that achieved a major liquidity event for its investors in Q4/2004 with its acquisition by Motorola. Martin also was responsible for building several high profile alliances with and for leading technology companies, including Fujitsu, Microsoft, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, and Teradata. Additionally, Martin has successfully negotiated technology transfer, distribution and/or licensing deals with companies like 3Com, BioChem Pharma, Dow Chemical, Exodus, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Netscape and Sun.

User Comments !

Martin --

In short, you are quite right.

I think the carriers that don't latch onto a phone/device that does Wi-Fi AND cellular are going to find themselves in the dustbin of history. It's relatively simple to add an 802.11 radio to a handset, or build a handset around it, and yet major cell carriers and some handset makers are still hanging on to that 3G-4G "cellular broadband" dream that has already evaporated for those of us in the real world.

I have used both pretty extensively, and the broadband touted by cellular-only companies is a paltry replacement for what is achievable with even a hastily laid out Wi-Fi strategy.

Looks like the industry dinosaurs need to follow AT&T's evolutionary lead, else they are all going to die out.

Bring on the wireless "mammals" !

-- Eric Love

Posted by: Eric Love | March 22 2009 14:19:46

I really enjoyed reading your piece. My opinion is that Cablevision and AT&T are doing the right thing by taking advantage of WiFi. This is especially true for AT&T where their 3G distribution is still lacking. For Verizon, I don't think that they are assuming that their cellular data network is robust enough that they don't need WiFi. I think their general business strategy is to drive all their customer's data connectivity through their cellular data network. They seem to generally disable non-cellular data connectivity, including bluetooth data access profiles. Even using USB to transfer files to and from the handset is harder to do and you have to use 3rd party software to facilitate that. I think that there would be a significant advantage for Verizon to allow their customers to use non-cellular connectivity, especially WiFi and bluetooth. The advantage of cellular connectivity is that you don't need to look for hotspots, and that advantage will always be there for the most part. But when other connection options are there, the customer experience of wireless connectivity can only benefit for them to get the choice. Carriers need to make data access a common and effortless activity. This will drive more users to adopt data services and that will also in turn drive more applications geared towards mobile data users which in then drive more data sub uptake in a feedback loop. So my answer is not that Cablevision and AT&T knowing something that Verizon doesn't. I think it's more that Verizon has a tunnel vision in their business strategy in regard to data users. Verizon does well in their data ARPU, but I think that it's because they limit their users and I think that their strategy will limit their growth on the data side.

Posted by: Quan Choi | March 26 2009 12:10:52

Verizon's philosophy is that they need to control the access to the customer (ergo FIOS) which evolves from an older telco philosophy of "owning" the customer through barriers to competition rather than competing by providing products the customer prefers. Heavy and expensive deployments of technology that few can compete with was the way of the past to own the customer. LTE, WiMAX, 4G, and other such technologies are further examples. Some of these technologies have fallen on their faces when less expensive alternatives were readily accepted. Sometimes, unfortunately, the expensive, heavy, and exclusive technology has succeeded due to marketing, control of standards forums, and propaganda campaigns. Sometimes, the expensive technology has been the better choice, but less often than some would like us to believe.

I think that AT&T has fallen into the camp of enlightened providers more by circumstance than intention. Their cellular network has been brought to its knees by the success of the iPhone and the only way to unload that network is by (surprise!) implementation of (cheap) WiFi technology.

CableVision is following a natural progression from its cable modem service to provide IP roaming in its market area. Kudos to them for seeing the opportunity and pursuing it.

I have been involved with providing broadband service (mostly in rural communities) using WiFi since 2002. We have found it extremely resilient and flexible with relatively little cost. We have delivered 1 mb service over nearly 20 miles with legal wifi and directional antennae. We can light up an entire community for a fraction of the cost per square mile of WiMax and using self-healing Mesh networks the service has fewer (or no) single points of failure which can take the entire network down. However AT&T and CableVision got into WiFi, it makes sense and it is making the case that the answer to services customers want is not always huge capital outlays and restrictions on competition.

Now if we just realize that the underlying mobile network should be IP with voice carried as data, rather than purpose-build voice mobile networks onto which we kluge IP (data), we would really be somewhere. WiFi standards for mobility and lower power demands are the key.

Posted by: Kingsley Hill | March 29 2009 09:02:26

To compare WiFi to 3G is like comparing my grandma's cookies to KFC. I can eat a cookie in the car, while I'm driving or whenever. I go for KFC is I am craving lots of cheap and greasy food and can locate a local KFC. Your points are irrelevant. There is no debate when it comes to WiFi vs 3G (that was put to bed in 2004 - you should remember the wild articles prior to '04). To even quote the report is laughable. If you have spent any time in the licensed world or within a large enterprise, you'd know that WiFi has its place but for mobility, 3G, HSDPA/HSPA + LTE are the way to go. Why argue that you can eat 2 buckets of KFC while standing and that I can only eat 2 cookies while driving? It's irrelevant. 3G mobility has its place outside and in some cases inside. WiFi is great for stationary access to Mg and Gb of data. As for VoIP and Mobility over WiFi -- sorry! I do not know a serious IT director or architect who wants to bet his career on VoWiFi or WiFi as a mobile campus solution. Also, when Nokia and Qualcomm settled in 2008 -- it was because of the many patents in Qualcomm's possession after acquiring FLASH-OFDM via Flarion. That deal has been paid for. Before talking about write-downs, spend some time with financial sector guys covering Qualcomm to understand the impact of its vast patent holdings as it relates to mobility and OFDM (WiMAX among others). So, I urge you to stop spending time on the "bleeding edge" and spend some more time in the real world. Your post cannot have helped your company's sales with service providers who have access to licensed spectrum - but that's just a wild guess.

Posted by: MobileInsider | April 08 2009 15:56:29

In my country, Wi-Fi become more popular especially in big city. Every building or offices are starting to build their wi-fi network for internal use. I am optimistic wi-fi will become good trend in my country because of it's ease of use.

Posted by: zyva | April 13 2009 21:59:23