Summary Issue
Following our coverage of key technology trends spanning the service provider network – mobile, fixed, voice, data and video – Current Analysis regularly contributes columns to various industry journals and media outlets. What follows is an adaptation of a column – adapted and expanded on – initially written for Fierce Wireless earlier in October.
Perspective Current Perspective
Earlier this month, Samsung announced 802.16m trials in Japan. ZTE followed up with demonstrations of what some are calling WiMAX 2.0 at the China PT & Infocomm conference. Pointing out that limited 802.16e success questions the need for 802.16m, Engadget referred to the new technology as a “Sequel to the movie most people haven’t watched.”
As witty as it might be, the value of this brand of commentary is questionable. Yes, it seems clear that in the long run WiMAX isn’t going to rival LTE for mobile broadband supremacy. But for operators that have launched WiMAX networks, are they supposed to simply give up on the WiMAX evolution path, even if it is powering revenue-generating services today? Though the operators might think LTE is the ultimate evolution path for their networks, sending out that message today could easily confuse customers - or upset national regulators. The same holds true for vendors. If they want to keep selling gear into WiMAX operators (or sell them TD-LTE going forward), they need an 802.16m story. Ignoring WiMAX 2.0 will simply telegraph a lack of faith in the entire 802.16 family. What kind of relationship does that build with customers?
If there is any question on this latter point, consider Alcatel-Lucent’s WiMAX business. When the company announced that it was pulling back from WiMAX mobility, it was very clear that it still saw opportunities in fixed applications. Knowing that its WiMAX R&D was taking a backseat to LTE, the customer response was fairly quick.
Strangely enough, however, for all of the WiMAX versus LTE panels, columns and analysis of the past few years, one question rarely asked is, “what could the industry have done to make WiMAX the success story many people were hoping for?” Assuming that it wasn’t always fated to take second place to LTE, what went wrong, or what should have been done differently?
We’ve asked that question internally more than a few times. The result: a list of “to do” items should we ever stumble upon a time machine.
• Less WiMAX Aggression. When WiMAX evolved from a technology driven by small fixed-wireless start-ups into a proto-4G contender driven by the likes of Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Intel, Motorola, Samsung and ZTE, the messaging took on a new tone. LTE became the chief rival. WiMAX became the solution to an impending deluge in mobile data demand. Would-be WiMAX competitors were put on alert – so much so that mobile operator CEOs (Vodafone, most notably) publicly went on record with the need for a response to WiMAX. The 3GPP and 3GPP2 communities were put on alert. LTE R&D was prioritized. To be sure, skyrocketing smartphone usage would have driven LTE roadmaps anyway. But without such aggressive messaging around the value of WiMAX (and OFDM and MIMO) in a mobile broadband world, the technology’s commercial lead on LTE might have been stretched out by at least a year or two.
• More Spectrum Bands. A core value proposition of the WiMAX ecosystem has always been its focus on TDD spectrum such as the 2.3GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands. FDD bands could be supported; the WiMAX Forum even planned a 700 MHz FDD profile at one point. A focus on TDD bands, however, addressed the relatively untapped opportunity for standards-based TDD equipment backed by a diverse ecosystem of devices. Unfortunately, as much as WiMAX supporters argued that operators with TDD spectrum would shake up the market and give traditional mobile broadband operators a run for their money, they were largely incorrect – similar, in many ways, to the late 1990s hype around the revolutionary impact of CLECs in the U.S. Would support for popular FDD spectrum bands have ensured broader WiMAX success with the operators driving today’s mobile broadband services? It is unclear, but it could not, however, have hurt the technology’s prospects.
• Specialization. Current Analysis’ CEO tells a story about being asked how he would compete with the market’s biggest IP networking firm if he were running a smaller start-up. His response was to focus on a very narrow set of market demands or market segments; the manufacturing sector, for example. Where the bigger vendor is forced to be everything to everyone, smaller vendors can execute on market requirements in a very specific industry, and likely do a better job than bigger players. WiMAX had the same opportunity. Had the standard developed to focus specifically on fixed applications, technical features and solution components would have developed to make competition from LTE more difficult. Beyond fixed broadband, the same could be said for vertical markets like utilities, public safety or transportation. Could LTE serve the same markets? Of course, and if the WiMAX industry had decisively pushed into them from several years back, would LTE be able to compete well with the ecosystem and momentum that WiMAX enjoyed? That is less likely.
• Interoperability. Interoperability has been a central tenet of the WiMAX industry and WiMAX Forum. “Open standards” (though, by definition, all standards are open) combined with WiMAX Forum profiles, it was argued, would allow vendors to create products that seamlessly worked with one another – resulting in a broad WiMAX ecosystem and cost efficiencies. To make this work, the WiMAX Forum took on the role of a certification body, testing interoperability against its profiles and taking on a role that 2G and 3G vendors had long done individually. In part, this proved to be a partial duplication of energy since WiMAX vendors still needed to develop their own interoperability labs. Perhaps more importantly, while device-network interoperability was prioritized, standards interoperability was not; the Forum opted not to focus on potential interoperability between the 802.16d and 802.16e standards. If vendors have been careful about painting 802.16m as imminent, it’s partly because the near-term arrival of 802.16m could delay investments in 802.16e gear and create general market confusion. Still, we’ve seen the telegraphing of 802.16m products, because backwards compatibility with 802.16e alleviates these concerns. This wasn’t the case with 802.16d and 802.16e. A complete lack of compatibility forced operators into a decision that often meant delaying launches and giving LTE more of a chance to catch up. Vendor R&D budgets, likewise, had to be split between rival camps limiting their efficacy. To be fair, this did work to keep smaller vendors out of the market. It also squandered the base of deployments WiMAX had managed to build, particularly when all of the Forum’s marketing efforts turned towards “mobile WiMAX” while ignoring the initial momentum.
• Realism. The WiMAX Forum and its supporters will never be accused of under-promising around the capabilities of the technology. Presentations painting a connected world that will take a decade or more to develop, as if it were right around the corner hurt the industry’s image. The same holds for widely unrealistic goals around device certification. To be sure, this level of hype was important for driving operator and vendor interest in the 802.16 family. Yet, creating unrealistic expectations for WiMAX also made any real progress seem like failure in comparison. Since it’s unlikely that anyone will develop a time machine any time soon, we could argue that considering “what might have been” is only slightly more useful than making fun of 802.16m. More broadly, however, where WiMAX is still very much alive and new technologies (new vendors) will continue to attempt to unseat incumbents, there are always lessons to be learned.
Recommended Actions Vendor Actions
• WiMAX vendors cannot afford to ignore 802.16m. It may not help to turn WiMAX into a viable mobile broadband rival to LTE, but it will be critical for keeping WiMAX technically competitive. Competitiveness, in turn, will be key for keeping current WiMAX operators happy (funding additional 802.16 R&D in the process) and for opening up new opportunities in specific vertical applications.
• Vendors need to get much more aggressive with attacking specific vertical opportunities for WiMAX. To be fair, existing partnerships with public safety, energy and transport specialists argue that they’ve already recognized the opportunity. What they have not done is move coherently in highlighting their success in targeting enterprise demands or worked in unison to standardize (much less certify) the features demanded by these industries.
• Beyond specific enterprise demands, WiMAX vendors need to target fixed applications as a sweet spot for their technology. To be sure, mobility adds a premium in terms of a technology’s value. The fixed market, however, is where WiMAX derives the majority of today’s users and specific product development would help to cement its position in this space. Ideally, vendors would coordinate to work on fixed-specific standard enhancements (something tried in the past but abandoned) to give the technology a technological as well as business advantage over LTE.
• WiMAX vendors need to rethink the industry’s product certification process. The promise of the certification process was a broader set of interoperable products – which would lead to better scale efficiency and a thriving WiMAX ecosystem. Ultimately, however, vendors were still required to test products on their own to ensure interoperability and the costs involved in certifying multiple models of CPE, arguably, stifled competition. Custom development for niche applications in niche spectrum bands will likely never go through the certification process, suggesting it may be time to re-engineer it.
• From a business perspective, two initiatives have driven the WiMAX Forum’s recent energies: roaming and “open retail.” Vendors need to drive more efforts on the former versus the latter. Grandiose WiMAX visions of consumer electronics shops filled with WiMAX gear are still a long way from being a reality. Roaming, on the other hand, would support the broader coverage (regional, national and global) that many applications need, while adding value to basic fixed applications much in the same way some fixed broadband services leverage deals with hotspot service providers.
User Actions
• Despite the negative hype around WiMAX, operators should not abandon the technology in the near-term. With years of development under its belt, WiMAX solutions are well proven in the market and the WiMAX ecosystem is currently much larger than its LTE rival. Likewise, in specific vertical markets or applications, LTE’s chief benefit over WiMAX – an ecosystem that should benefit from greater scale – is not as important since interoperability and pricing pressures tend to be less.
• Operators need to ensure that their LTE network and device suppliers have learned from WiMAX. With LTE solutions appearing in multiple spectrum bands and in TDD, as well as FDD, profiles, it seems that the LTE industry is not going to repeat many of the key mistakes made by its 802.16 counterpart. Yet, where the WiMAX space was smartly innovative – a focus on keeping the costs of IPR in check, a focus on enabling retail model for WiMAX distribution – operators must work with their LTE vendors and push them to follow suit.
• WiMAX service providers should consider driving the WiMAX Forum to change its leadership. Since its inception, Intel essentially led the efforts of the Forum. Its clout gave the technology an undeniable credibility boost. At the same time, the Forum has obviously failed in helping WiMAX to be as successful as it could have been; beyond credibility, Intel hasn’t managed to guide the Forum to adapt to the LTE threat. Now that Intel has taken a broader interest in LTE, it may be willing to let other vendors take the charge – vendors which could help rally the industry around the opportunities that still remain. Operators will need to drive this.
发表于 2010-11-3 10:54:12
