New opportunities for wireless broadband
Transcription
New opportunities for wireless broadband
Huawei Communicate Expert’s View “Batelco’s NGN will deliver our promise Dr. Ye Weichen, joined Intel in July 2007 and then became the CTO of the China WiMAX Division, leading the Intel (China) WiMAX standardization to bring affordable broadband accessresearch to allteam of to promote WiMAX technology in China. Bahrain’s households, making them among the best connected in the world. NGBWA and WiMAX in 2009 New opportunities for wireless broadband By Ye Weichen T he financial crisis is a major WiMAX deployment is concern for the IT and communications industries. on the rise along with G l o b a l l y, t h e e c o n o m y i s increasingly and governments the demand for wireless are proactivelyintegrated stimulating the economic recovery with sizeable investments. broadband. The current Investing in the communications industr y is an effective way to spur worldwide economic economic growth and developing wireless downturn brings not only broadband network applications fuels further growth. pressure but also great opportunity for WiMAX New-generation broadband wireless technology. access To deliver broadband wireless network applications to consumers, especially low-cost broadband services, we need to leverage the new generation broadband wireless access (NGBWA) technology. NGBWA technology is endowed with four basic attributes: advanced, efficient, innovative, and economical. Advanced refers to high radio spectrum utilization. Based on OFDMA-MIMO air interface technology, the NGBWA technology enables high spectrum utilization. Efficient refers to the capability of supporting high-speed and highthroughput data services which requires an All-IP and flat network structure. Innovative refers to keeping the network platform open. An open network platform is helpful to enabling various applications. Then, develop a safe, manageable, and sustainable business mode through market testing. Economical refers to cost-effective network construction and low operational expenditures. This requires a mature ecosystem that is equipped with diversified devices. Among the technologies which have been commercialized on a large scale, WiMAX based on IEEE802.16e is a typical NGBWA technology. Wi-Fi is widely deployed and can supplement WiMAX well in multi-mode networks. WiMAX is suitable for wide area coverage and Wi-Fi for hot spot coverage. This combination will certainly play a critical role in wireless construction in urban areas. Home & Enterprise Broadband proposed by Huawei is an important NGBWA application scenario. Fixed broadband (such as ADSL) is the current major access mode of the home market. In the near future, the home market will become an important segment of broadband wireless access. T h e i d e a o f Ho m e & E n t e r p r i s e Broadband unifies home and commercial applications and proposes the combination of individuals (home) and collectives (businesses) to ensure that subscribers experience the same quality of wireless broadband service. APR 2009 . ISSUE 48 12 Expert’s View New opportunities for wireless broadband “1-2-3-4-5” indicates WiMAX 2009 WiMAX achieved a lot in 2008 as the typical NGBWA technology. Six leading enterprises initiated the establishment of the Open Patent Alliance (OPA). Sprint/ Clear wire began to deliver WiMAX commercial services in the USA. The products certification of 802.16e Wave2 has been carried out. Laptops with embedded Intel WiMAX/Wi-Fi dual-mode 13 APR 2009 . ISSUE 48 chips have been delivered. Clearwire raised 3.2 billion USD from five enterprises and invested in WiMAX network deployment across America. Expect even more achievements in 2009 which are described in “1-2-3-4-5” below. 1 1 stands for 1.00 USD. On June 9th, 2008, Intel, Cisco, Samsung, Alcatel-Lucent, Sprint, and Clearwire jointly established the OPA, aiming to lower the patent royalties of relevant technologies by establishing an open WiMAX patent pool. It was agreed that less than one USD would be paid as the patent royalty for each WiMAX terminal, which is the common mission of OPA and many enterprises in the industry. In fact, the idea of a patent pool has been the wish of Chinese enterprises and regulatory authorities for years. It is worth mentioning that Huawei is a member of the board of directors of OPA. This not only helps to increase the influence of Huawei Communicate Huawei on the global WiMAX industry, but also further boosts the overall WiMAX industry chain. 2 2 is for “on both sides of the Taiwan Strait”. 2009 is a critical year for enterprises on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to rise to leading positions in the global WiMAX industry. This also marks the first year that Chinese enterprises will take a leading position in the global mainstream information communications technology industry. On the mainland, vendors, such as Huawei have many advantages over others in terms of WiMAX networks and systems. They are playing an increasingly important role in the WiMAX forum and the IEEE, having obtained considerable WiMAX network construction contracts. Under the M-Taiwan plan formulated by the Taiwan administrative authority, a complete industr y chain has been formed and six WiMAX licenses have been issued. Today, Taiwan has developed into the largest WiMAX base in the world, integrating manufacturing, testing, application, and operations. Both mainland China and Taiwan are known as the factories of the world producing electronic information devices and enterprises like Lenovo, ASUS, Acer, and HTC have taken the lead in launching diversified WiMAX terminals. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait have complementary advantages and will become the new engines of the next WiMAX development stage. 3 3 means WiMAX would be commercialized three years ahead of LTE. WiMAX is no longer the solo performer, but the competition is enabling innovation and progress. As LTE is driven to quicken its pace of growth, the final beneficiaries will be the market and subscribers. Early time to market helps WiMAX attract numerous operators in emerging markets, while operators in mature markets are also glad to take WiMAX as an effective broadband access technology that is helpful to creating new competitive advantages. WiMAX was first commercialized d u r i n g 2 0 0 7 . To d a y, t h e W i M A X ecosystem is increasingly mature and chips and terminals have gradually generated economies of scale. According to ABI research, the average price of a WiMAX chip decreased to 23 USD in 2008 from 32 USD in 2006 and is predicted to drop to 6 USD in 2013. Since Wi-Fi and WiMAX will be further integrated, the cost of a multi-mode chip of WiMAX will be reduced to less than 5 USD. 4 4 is for the four attributes of NGBWA, as mentioned above. As a typical NGBWA technology, WiMAX is well endowed with four important basic attributes: advanced, efficient, innovative and economical. WiMAX is mainly a data service access technology. The Senior Vice President of Huawei, Mr. Xu Zhijun said, “We do not identify WiMAX as a mobile communications system, but as a fixed wireless broadband access solution to supplement the overall broadband access solution.” This idea is being accepted by worldwide telecom operators. Operators with 3G licenses take WiMAX as a necessary supplement to voice networks and those without 3G licenses place WiMAX in an even more important position. It is clear that as an efficient and economical broadband wireless access solution for data services, WiMAX will occupy a wide market space. 5 5 represents the five new focuses in the global WiMAX market. In the past two years, WiMAX penetrated both developed and emerging markets through its superior technical features and unique position as a wireless broadband access solution. There are five focuses in the global WiMAX market: developed markets like America and Japan, typical emerging markets like India and Russia and the important engine of the WiMAX ecosystem, Taiwan. First, the United States is representative of WiMAX application. The operator, C l e a r w i re , w i l l c o n t i n u e t o d e p l oy WiMAX networks in America. Second, UQ started pilot commercial applications in three Japanese cities in February and will begin formal commercial application on July 1st. Third, the Indian government has selected WiMAX as the primar y broadband access technology for the whole country. Its 2.5GHz frequency band will be auctioned very soon. Then, BSNL will begin to deploy WiMAX networks and deliver commercial services in 2009. Fourth, in Russia, Yota has deployed W i M A X n e t w o r k s i n Mo s c o w a n d St.Petersburg, covering about 20 million people, and Comstar is actively preparing t o l a u n c h t h e c o m m e rc i a l Wi M A X application. Fifth, Taiwan VMAX will activate WiMAX commercial service in the first half of 2009. By measuring the above five focuses from the perspective of WiMAX industry development, the American and Japanese markets indicate that mainstream markets have moved into the popularity stage. The Indian and Russian markets indicate the beginnings of the introduction stage in emerging markets and the fourth year of implementing “M-Taiwan” shows how the WiMAX ecosystem is going to be further optimized and upgraded, changing the local industry’s economy in the process. WiMAX will drive the wireless b ro a d b a n d m a rk e t i n A f r i c a , L a t i n America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East while achieving several milestones in markets that influence the global market. In 2009, the WiMAX industry chain will show its developmental rule in diversified markets. The prosperity of NGBWA and WiMAX is built upon sufficient market requirements and the suitable positioning of technologies. The development of wireless broadband networks will no doubt become a highlight in this special period. As a champion of WiMAX, we take a bullish stance about development this year. Editor: Xu Peng [email protected] APR 2009 . ISSUE 48 14