To download a full copy of the whitepaper including operator case studies click here.



Monica Paolini is President of Senza Fili Consulting, a consulting and analyst firm that focuses on wireless data technologies and services.  She can be contacted at monica.paolini@senzafiliconsulting.com. 

Even if mobile penetration has made huge progress in the past 5 years, this country, which is positioned as a world exporter of IT knowledge, has a shameful 1.5% of the world total broadband penetration share compared to its 17.6% of the world population.  The actual country broadband penetration relative to its own population is even lower, at less than 1%! China, Russia and Brazil have done relatively better both in terms of mobile and broadband share of the world total penetration relative to their population size, but these countries still have a long way to go in terms of actual country broadband penetration.


Behind spectrum is a political battle

While it is clear that these countries represent a huge market opportunity, they are also characterized by a rather messy regulatory environment that does not foster confidence and discourages foreign investments.  In particular, I am referring to the spectrum policy for broadband wireless access in these countries.  With the exception of China, which has had a clear political agenda to promote its homegrown TD-SCDMA technology, the other three countries have followed a messy spectrum road for BWA in the recent years.

China has decided to allocate spectrum for 3G while essentially ignoring WiMAX as a potential mobile technology, limiting it to the fixed arena in the 3.5GHz.  There are no signs that the MIIT, the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, is going to reverse that position.  On the contrary, China, unlike many other countries, did not auction off its 3G spectrum, nor did it allow its elected 3G operators to select the technology of their choice, with the aim of building a strong home-installed base for TD-SCDMA.  China continues to dictate its own agenda at its own pace for both 3G and the expected LTE-TDD.

China's refusal to release 2.3GH, 2.5GHz or more 3.5GHz spectrum for BWA and WiMAX differs from the situation in the other BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia and India, where regulators have been lacking a clear vision and a stance regarding which technology can best help materialize that vision.  Instead, these countries have been the battleground for lobbyists from the 2 opposing camps of 3G and WiMAX.  As a result of this political battle and influence on regulators, spectrum availability has been repeatedly delayed and the rules for services remained blurred, thus creating a climate of uncertainty for service providers, equipment vendors and financiers about investing in broadband networks and reviving sluggish broadband penetration.

The 3GPP camp champions 3G mobile standards (W-CDMA and CDMA 2000) as well as LTE, while the WIMAX camp represented by the WIMAX Forum is essentially championing 802.16e.  All countries have allocated 3G licenses, except for India, which is scheduled to license both WiMAX and 3G spectrum in Q1 2010.  The auction was originally scheduled to commence almost a year ago, but has been subject to numerous delays including the Indian general elections last May.  India aims to sell around four 3G licenses and three mobile broadband licenses in 20 of the 22 telecom zones in the country. 

In the case of the 3G auction, the government has decided to auction up to 20 MHz of paired spectrum in the 2.1GHz band in the telecom service areas where 25 MHz or more paired spectrum is available.  In such cases, four blocks of 2x5 MHz will be auctioned, in addition to one block being reserved for BSNL and MTNL (the two state-owned operators that have already been allocated spectrum).  Not more than 1 block of 3G spectrum, 1 block of 800MHz spectrum or 1 block of BWA spectrum is to be allocated to any single bidder within a service area.

In the case of Brazil and Russia, it is still not clear whether mobile services can be provided with WiMAX.  Brazil still restricts the usage of 3.5GHz to fixed only services, while in Russia mobile WIMAX operators are working in a grey area as the country's spectrum committee has yet to make clear rules regarding what services will be allowed in the 2.5GHz frequency band.

The 3GPP camp's PR and lobbying muscle is partly responsible for the delay and messy spectrum situation in Brazil, Russia and India.  WiMAX supporters feel they are denied access to huge markets for which WIMAX is well-suited technology for fixed, portable and mobile applications.  In the meantime, consumers and businesses in these countries can only wait and watch until a winner emerges who will make broadband affordable and more widely available.



Adlane Fellah, Eng.  MBA is CEO and founder of Maravedis Inc.  a world-leader and pioneer in Broadband Wireless and WiMAX market research and analysis.  He is a leading industry analyst and authored various landmark reports on WiMAX, Broadband Wireless and Voice over IP (VoIP).  Mr.  Fellah is regularly asked to speak at leading wireless events and to contribute to various influential portals and magazines such as Telephony Magazine, WiMAX Trends, WiMAX.com, to name a few.

Fellah is a member of the Program Advisory Board for the WiMAX World conference since 2004 and an active member of the World Communications Association International and the European Broadband Wireless Association.  Prior to founding Maravedis, Fellah held various positions at Harris Corporation in charge of market intelligence and business development for several product lines.

• Be able to heal itself
• Motivate consumers to actively participate in operations of the grid.
• Resist attack
• Provide higher quality power that will save money wasted from outages
• Accommodate all generation and storage options
• Enable electricity markets to flourish
• Run more efficiently

What is significant to the telecommunications industry is that most of these require sophisticated communications networks in order to implement. In particular, self-healing, consumer participation (including buying and selling of electricity), and resisting attack are all integrally dependent on a communications network overlay to the electrical grid.

In terms of what is going on in the utility business, Smart Grid sometimes receive more marketing lip service than anything else. One utility representative told me, "The same salesperson is coming in to sell me the same thing as always, but now he says it's part of Smart Grid."

This is one reason why Tuesday's announcement was important. It is a significant step toward reducing the hype and inaction, and toward implementing the vision.

What was Allocated

Last spring, the US Department of Energy began accepting requests for stimulus dollars toward grid revitalization. Originally, there were to be three rounds of funding, but the 400 requests were so overwhelming, the DOE decided to only perform one award cycle. About 25% of the requests, covering 45 states and territories, were granted, to the tune of $3.4B. Combining this with matching spending by utilities and other private funds, the total commitment will exceed $8B.

In announcing the awards, the Obama Administration outlined the following policy goals and the related funding:

- Empowering Consumers to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills - $1 billion.

- Making Electricity Distribution and Transmission More Efficient - $400 million.

- Integrating and Crosscutting Across Different "Smart" Components of a Smart Grid - $2 billion.

- Building a Smart Grid Manufacturing Industry - $25 million.

The sexy part of this award is the first item, which pays for 18 million smart meters (raising the U.S. total to 40 million, or 31% of all housing units). It also covers one million in-home displays to help consumers monitor their energy usage.

But to the telecommunications industry, the third item is more important, the integration of components across the grid itself.

Going Beyond the Basics

The stimulus awards allow the electric industry to finally plant the pillars upon which Smart Grid will be based. Certainly this is only a first step, but an important one to an industry that is much more highly regulated than telecom - and one funded in a vastly different way.

To the telecommunications industry, the excitement about Smart Grid isn't about smart meters, which are only a first step in two-way communication. (The electric utility industry is years, even decades, behind what's possible and offered in the telecom industry). Where we're really going with Smart Grid also goes beyond in-home displays. When Smart Grid really starts to flower, it will be capable of:

- Real-time rate (time-of-use) information delivered to the home, so that a home energy decision-making computer can determine how to save money by turning off appliances or even negotiating transactions to purchase from competing electric providers.

- Two-way transactions to buy and sell energy. For example, consumers could sell solar power or electric reserves from plug-in electric hybrid vehicles to energy companies. In essence, the home becomes a power plant.

- More sophisticated fault management techniques.

All of these concepts hinge on communications networking. To achieve these more advanced capabilities, though, utilities and consumers must start with a basic Smart Grid that first gets the conversation going between the two entities.

An Avenue for WiMAX

There is a lot of discussion around the standards for Smart Grid, which goes beyond the scope of this article. In short, standards will likely center on the application data that flows between Smart Grid components - and its security.

This leaves plenty of room for transport options on the network, and for each utility to decide the right networking for its needs. We can expect a mix of private and public networks, and a mix of technologies. These decisions will be driven by factors such as:

- Necessary security of the data - There is a lot of information that needs to be secure, but there is also information that requires less security.

- Volume of data - The utility industry is bracing for the volume. Today, metering typically consists of one-way monthly transactions of small amounts of data. In the future, there will be a flood of data traveling both directions over Smart Grid communications networks.

- Speed / latency - Quality of service and prioritization of data will be important. These may drive different networking solutions, depending on data types.

- Terrain and geography - An urban-based utility will have a different profile than a rural cooperative.

These are just some of the many factors. As you can imagine, cost will be an overriding factor in the discussion.

WiMAX is positioned to be well-suited to many of these needs. With its speed, quality of service capabilities and security measures, WiMAX should be in the mix as a telecom choice. Because the utilities in many cases will build their own networks, there are green field opportunities that go beyond what the local public cellular carriers might provide.

WiMAX vendors would do well to invest time and effort in studying Smart Grid opportunities and learning how to take advantage, now that the pillars of Smart Grid will be laid over the next few years.



Cecil Taylor is an independent consultant to companies in the telecom industry, including the utilities and health care vertical markets. His specialties include opportunity identification, strategic network architecture, requirements planning and definition, and project management. Cecil can be reached at networkedgrid@gmail.com






 

Despite the bleak economic conditions at the first of the year, operators are starting to show signs of recovery with increases in subscribers and service revenue growth.  This was based on analysis from Maravedis and its 4G Counts service that tracks 4G operator deployments and provides details on the 4G ecosystem from over 200 operators in 92 countries.

The Maravedis webinar presented earlier in the week provided breakdowns of network deployments, leading 4G operators, applications, usage and pricing.

According to the firm, approximately 560,000 BWA/WiMAX subscribers were added in Q2 2009 - a 74% year-over-year growth rate since Q2 2008.  The total number of BWA (broadband wireless access) and WiMAX subscribers was around 4 million at the end of June 2009.

Based on their survey, 332, BWA/WiMAX networks had been deployed as of June 2009 of which 42% were for fixed WiMAX (802.16d) networks, 37% for mobile WiMAX (802.16e) networks, and the remaining 21% for proprietary networks.  Also, an additional 39 operators had committed to deploying LTE networks sometime in the future.

The number of fixed WiMAX networks were hightest in Europe, while the most mobile WiMAX networks were reported in the Asia/Pacific region.





Maravedis also presented the top 22 WiMAX operators Globaly in terms of the number of subscribers.  Toping the list was Clearwire in the US with over 500K subscribers, followed by Inukshuk in Canada, Korea Telecom, and Telmex International and Axtel in Mexico. 

Also interesting was the large amount of data usage reported by some operators from their customers.  Both Tatung in Taiwan and Scartel in Russia reported close to 10GB per month of usage by their subscribers, driving by unlimited data plans and fixed rate pricing.

The webinar also highlighted some of the limitation and challenges faced by LTE operators including lack of harmonized spectrum, delays in the availability of LTE devices, interoperability/standardization and possible lack of funding caused by the economic recession.

Also emphasized were the time-to-market and wide ecosystem advantages of WiMAX, the strength of LTE with the support of the largest mobile players, and the need for 3G operators to continue to address traffic growth on their networks.

The recent growth numbers are encouraging news for the industry and show the demand for broadband, especially in emerging markets.  We expect that the number of WiMAX subscribers in the next update of 4G Counts to increase substantially with the inclusion of Russian WiMAX operator Yota which reportedly reached 200,000 subscribers in early October, as well as Clearwire in the US with its major market launches planned in Q4.
 

• Primary Markets - Licensed WiMAX tends to be used primarily in urban markets, while unlicensed WiMAX is the technology of choice for the rural markets.
• Primary Applications - Licensed WiMAX is most often used for Mobile WiMAX deployments such as Clearwire's services. Unlicensed WiMAX tends to cater to the fixed broadband wireless access/last mile access markets for rural and under-served areas; connectivity/backhaul for wireless video surveillance; and connectivity/backhaul for Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) and transportation applications.
• Interference - Licensed WiMAX is regulated so each Service Provider owns their own frequency bands so will not get interference from other Service Providers. Unlicensed WiMAX is unregulated so each Service Provider needs to be a nice neighbor and ensure they do not interfere with other networks. Having 480MHz of spectrum available in the 5GHz unlicensed band provides amble flexibility to avoid interference with other operators.
• Cost - Securing frequency licenses for licensed WiMAX can cost billions of dollars. This massive up-front cost often prohibits the use of the technology for many providers. But for unlicensed WiMAX, there is no cost for frequencies. Cost of equipment is the only up-front cost.
• Time to Deploy - Licensed WiMAX can take several months to apply for and acquire desired frequencies, and requires extensive pre-planning. Unlicensed WiMAX is much faster time to market due to limited restrictions.
• Capacity - Lower frequency bands (such as licensed WiMAX) have smaller channel sizes(1-7 MHz max.), and thus, less total capacity available. This makes licensed WiMAX ideal for voice, but sub-optimal for data. Unlicensed WiMAX supports 480MHz of spectrum in most countries with channel sizes up to and exceeding 40MHz, thus increasing your max. capacity by more than 5x over licensed - making it optimal for broadband data.

Primary Applications

As mentioned above, the cost benefits of unlicensed WiMAX over licensed WiMAX are pretty extreme due to the billions of dollars required to obtain licensed frequencies in the first place. That fact alone often dictates when and where licensed can or cannot be used, and drives the demand for unlicensed WiMAX in many markets where the cost of licensed technologies is not justifiable. Below are several key markets where the high performance and significantly reduced cost of unlicensed WiMAX make it an ideal technology.

Last-Mile Access for Rural Areas

WiMAX has long been pegged as the saving grace for providing broadband to rural, under-served communities throughout the world. But when determining which variant (licensed or unlicensed) is better suited for deploying last-mile access to these under-served areas, it's important to remember the primary reason why many of these areas don't have access in the first place. Simply put, the cost of extending service via fiber or other wired technologies has outweighed the potential return the major carriers could expect based on the small populations of people in these rural areas.

With wired technologies like fiber or copper, the combination of the high cost of goods as well as the cost associated with trenching or stringing that wire for long distances to rural areas was the prohibiting factor. Similarly, with licensed WiMAX, the high cost of applying for and acquiring licensed frequencies has also made it an unrealistic option for extending broadband service to remote communities - despite the distance benefits that WiMAX links provide.

Unlicensed WiMAX, however, provides an ideal balance of high-performance, long-distance functionality at a significantly lower cost. As a result, carriers, ISPs and WISPs are able to cost-effectively extend broadband service to remote rural areas. And due to the significant upfront cost savings, these service providers are able to recognize a much quicker return on investment (ROI), even though the population of subscribers in these areas is smaller.

Wireless Video Surveillance

Another burgeoning market that unlicensed WiMAX has carved out a well-defined niche in is the video surveillance market (see my earlier article on The Wireless Video Sureveillance Opportunity). This is a market whose growth has exploded over the past 5 years, and that ABI Research forecasts will be a $41 billion a year market by 2014.

This explosive growth and continued market potential is due to an increasing need for video surveillance to help secure the world's ports, airports, cities and transportation infrastructure as well as schools, hospitals, government and other critical environments. Now more than ever, organizational demands have hastened our search for better, more cost-effective security applications, and in many instances, rapid deployment of security systems has become essential. But as critical as improved security has become, budgets to accomplish this goal are by no means unlimited.

Organizations of all kinds are being challenged to install video surveillance in areas that are too remote, too costly or physically impossible to reach with additional cabling. As a result, unlicensed wireless solutions have been a boon to the video surveillance market as they enable the ability to cost-effectively leap over these barriers, allowing a virtually unlimited number of video surveillance cameras to be deployed quickly, easily and affordably.

In particular, unlicensed WiMAX has emerged as the premiere solution to provide the wireless backhaul and transmission of real-time video surveillance. As a wireless WAN technology, WiMAX was designed specifically with the efficient backhaul of broadband data, voice and video at its core. Unlike wireless mesh technologies, which provide unpredictable service for backhauling streaming video, WiMAX is deterministic with built in scheduled access and Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms to ensure the reliable delivery of video.

For more information on the benefits of wireless for video surveillance, download a free white paper here.

Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) and Transportation

In recent years, there has been a large trend towards deploying video cameras at intersection to enable a number of traffic and transportation applications. One well-known program is the Red Light Running program, where cameras automatically detect cars that run red lights, snap a picture of their license plate, and send the driver a ticket.

Until recent years, the only realistic option for connecting the cameras at these intersections was to run a dedicated leased line to each camera at every intersection a city wished to deploy. This was not only an extremely costly solution, with leased lines running as much as $2,000 (in some cases more) per month, but installing a new dedicated wired line for each camera also required a great deal of labor, further driving up the cost and impeding the scalability of these systems. Many cities and towns simply don't have the budget to deploy wired or licensed systems, though.

Today, however, cities and counties are turning to unlicensed WiMAX technologies to remove the cost and complexity roadblocks that have prevented greater rollout of these programs. WiMAX, originally designed as a backhaul technology, has proven ideal for the increased bandwidths required by HD video cameras. And since today's wireless radios can not only backhaul the traffic from multiple cameras while (in some cases) powering co-located cameras directly from the radio via Power over Ethernet (PoE), unlicensed WiMAX and other high-bandwidth point-to-multipoint technologies are ideally suited to drive down the cost of traffic camera connectivity while greatly easing deployments.

This is Just the Beginning?

While the applications above are great examples of existing market opportunities where unlicensed WiMAX is thriving, these are just the beginning. In any application or deployment scenario where running fiber is deemed too costly, licensed WiMAX is also likely to be similarly cost-prohibitive. And that's where unlicensed WiMAX comes to the rescue, with many of the same technological benefits of licensed WiMAX, but at a fraction of the cost.

Conclusion

There are definitely huge market opportunities for both licensed and unlicensed WiMAX, but it is important to understand in which applications and opportunities each is relevant. For applications and markets where high-performance broadband access or connectivity is needed but where initial cost and a need for faster ROI are limiting factors, unlicensed WiMAX and other unlicensed PtMP technologies are the ideal solution for the following reasons:

• Elimination of the massive costs and delays of trenching for fiber or acquiring licensed frequencies
• Quickly deployed and configured - operational within hours
• Deploys virtually anywhere - across rugged terrain, bodies of water and remote areas
• Carrier-class reliability ensures non-stop security
• High capacity, configurable and secure broadband wireless for guaranteed QoS
• Enables real-time transmission from and control of surveillance cameras

For more information on the cost benefits of unlicensed WiMAX and other wireless technologies, get a free copy of a new analyst report from Craig Mathias, principal analyst at the Farpoint Group, titled "Wireline vs. Wireless: Exploring Total Cost of Ownership in Outdoor Applications." You can download a copy of the report for free here.



Robb Henshaw is the Director of Marketing & Communications at Proxim Wireless, a manufacturer of end-to-end broadband wireless systems, where he oversees the company's global marketing and communications efforts.  For the last 8 years he has been dedicated to helping develop the wireless industry, with expertise in technologies ranging from enterprise WLANs, to carrier-grade wireless backhaul, to WiMAX and point-to-multi point broadband wireless access (BWA) solutions.