Wireless Tech Chat

Yet another big-city wireless network falls by the wayside. AT&T has informed St. Louis city officials that they are killing their plans to develop and deploy a muni WiFi network that was supposed to roll out over the next two years.

According to the company, high costs and technical issues were behind their decision. The plan, as described by AT&T, was to mount transmitters on the city’s 51,000 streetlights, but the problem was that many of them are not powered during the day. Other methods of bringing network signals to the masses were considered, such as mounting them on various infrastructure spread througout the area, but all of them were too costly for both the city and AT&T to commit to, so the decision was made to scrap the whole thing.

Just like other major cities including San Francisco and Chicago, the path to muni WiFi, which was once on an upward swing, is now struggling to stay afloat. As discussed in an earlier post, the Corpus Christi, Texas network model may be the one to simulate by cities big and small moving forward, but all eyes will also be on Philadelphia as mass roll out of its own wireless network which, ironically, is being built and managed by EarthLink, the poster child for the roller-coaster ride that is citywide wireless, will get underway by the end of this year into next year. If the Philly network can prove effective, then maybe, just maybe, muni WiFi can get back on its feet.

[Via NetworkWorld]

The proposed wireless network for Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is being based on WiMax technology, is not likely to be up and running until around the middle of next year, says a city official.

Clearwire inked a deal with the city to have a network up by the end of this year, but they are running behind schedule, although there are no specifics as to why the city and the potential user base have to wait until mid-2008. There have been some indications that Clearwire’s technology partners, Motorola and Intel, are not developing the equipment necessary to handle WiMax signals fast enough to satisfy the original deadline, but as the project manager, Clearwire takes ultimate responsibility for what happens with regard to the network.

When the network is finally ready to roll, there are some interesting aspects to it that may spur other municipalities to copy what Grand Rapids and Clearwire are looking to do with it. For example, Clearwire will establish WiFi hotspots at various locations throughout the city for those users who choose not to upgrade their computers to work in the WiMax network environment.

In addition, the local government plans to leverage the netowrk to allow emergency responders to access information while positioned throughout the city. The contract also will allow Clearwire to access local infrastructure, including water towers, to position equipment.

The company also says it will provide discounted network service for qualified low-income residents, so the concept of “bridging the digital divide” still lives on, at least in this particular scenario.

[Via MLive.com]

The recent departure of Sprint Nextel’s chairman and CEO Gary Forsee may end up putting a major snag in the company’s plan to build a national WiMax network, which is said to be valued at around $5 billion.

Many wireless companies like Sprint are looking for new revenue streams to augment their traditional cellphone service businesses, so a a natural progression would be to turn to providing broadband wireless service, either through WiFi or, in this case, WiMax. It was only a few months ago that Sprint took the plunge into WiMax, and now things may get a little dicey.

In the immediate term, a wireless network being built by both Sprint and Motorola for the city of Chicago may be affected by the boardroom turmoil, although spokespeople from both companies say that work is still ongoing and on schedule. However, if a major corporation is going to be spending a good deal of time seeking new executive leadership, how much attention is going to be paid to this one single project?

There has been talk that Sprint may spin off its WiMax development business unit, Xohm, into a separate company, which on the surface should keep the people and projects associated with it away from the corporate shenanigans, but inevitably spin-offs nearly always get distracted by the parent company at one time or another. Why would this situation be any different?

However, this is all just speculation when you get right down to it. Sprint may just decide to forge ahead with their WiMax plans because “traditional” citywide wireless networks are struggling and the market opportunity is definitely there for the taking.

[Via Chicago Tribune]

By now you’ve undoubtedly read and heard about EarthLink’s announcement of a major restructuring which will include the elimination of 900 jobs–about half of its total workforce–and the shuttering of four regional offices. CEO Rolla Huff said that although the company will expect to lose up to $109 million this year, it will not abandon it’s pursuit of the muni WiFi marketplace.

Despite the difficulties, Earthlink says it remains committed to building the wireless networks in Philadelphia, Anaheim, and other cities it has already won the bids for, but other projects in Houston, Chicago, and possibly San Francisco are likely to fall by the wayside.

In addition, Huff said that the company will work on developing a new business model for muni WiFi, which will likely involve local governments assuming more of the financial risk as well as committing to becoming anchor tenants for the networks.

For a long time EarthLink was essentially the “Big Man on Campus” when it came to muni WiFi, and their recent actions certainly will not put a good light on the concept of citywide wireless networks. It remains to be seen if the company can pick up the shattered pieces and start anew, or this really is the beginning of the end, both for them as well as muni WiFi. There is an opportunity for other providers to zoom in and provide wireless services, but they’re going to have to do it in a way that will have to be financially and technologically prudent. Time will tell if this will come to fruition.

[Via InformationWeek]

Although WiMax technology has made some serious in-roads over the past few months, it still will be a while before it overtakes WiFi.

According to an In-Stat study, one of the main reasons why WiFi will remain the big man on campus for the foresseable future is that there are hundreds of millions of devices in existence that have WiFi technology embedded in them, and both the business and personal wireless market sectors will not be so apt to change so quickly, no matter how much better WiMax is either perceived or proven to be.

In addition, WiMax equipment is priced about the same or a little higher than WiFi, so economically there is no incentive to switch. Of course, once the technology sees any mass deployments, that will certainly change. Plus, WiMax’s range dwarves WiFi’s, but let’s see it work consistently in a metropolitan setting before the WiFi equipment is ditched.

But let’s not be naive–WiMax will enter the marketplace on a wide scale soon, and we then can assess (or re-assess) it’s impact.

[Via Washington Post]

Remember on Seinfeld when George proclaimed it “The Summer of George”?

Well, Intel says 2008 will be “The Year of WiMax”, so to speak. According to a spokesperson from the company’s WiMax Program Office, a number of WiMax-supported processor, notebooks, and other devices will hit the marketplace next year, so the technology’s supporters are hoping this will mark the beginning of mass acceptance of WiMax into both the residential and business market sectors.

Whether or not this view is correct is up in the air–field tests are still being conducted, and the amount of spectrum space required for WiMax to make a difference is still being determined.

It’s still not a sure bet that WiMax will replace WiFi, especially in dense residential areas, although supporters say the ability to transfer data up to 70Mbits per second at distances up to 37 miles will be enticing to those municipalities looking at developing and deploying wireless networks. This will be a particularly effective selling point because it will mean less equipment at less overall cost.

It won’t be long before we flip the calendar to January 1, 2008, so whether it will be one to remember for WiMax remains to be seen.

[Via Information Week]

In a bold and fairly risky move, Sprint Nextel has decided to build a wireless network based on WiMax technology while leveraging its existing airwaves.

The company has teamed up with Clearwire, which has made a name for itself since launching back in 2004 by providing WiMax-enabled services in a number of markets throughout the country. Both companies are seeking to bring WiMax to the masses and forgoing the opportunity to bid for airwaves in an upcoming auction.

As part of the agreement between Sprint and Clearwire, customers will have the ability roam on each other’s service while they continue to build and shape the new network. The service will be introduced in Baltimore, Washington and Chicago by the end of the year, and plans are in place to make it available to 100 million customers by the end of 2008.

Critics say that WiMax has still not proven itself on a grand scale, but a number of smaller networks have proved fairly successful both in the U.S. and abroad, so this deal certainly may be the make-or-break point for the technology, with billions of dollars riding on it.

As has been noted in a number of news stories and blog postings regarding this deal, could this portend the beginning of the end for muni WiFi? I personally don’t think so yet, only because cities are still just beginning to learn what the potential of wireless network access may mean for their particular locales, and it would seem a bit of a stretch for them to make the quantum leap to WiMax. However, if this Sprint Nextel/Clearwire network has a succesful beta testing period followed by launch, things could change rather quickly, since it would be economically more feasible to deploy WiMax-enabled access points, which have a far greater range than WiFi-enabled ones.

[Via Washington Post]

The owners of a small telecommunications company based in Upstate New York editorialize that government should not get into the business of being broadband wireless provider or as a partner with a single dominant carrier. In their opinion, local and state governments should take steps to insure that providers have access to infrastructure (light poles, land, etc.) so that these companies can install their equipment and create opportunities for residents, businesses, and visitors to login to a wireless network. In addition, they rightly point out that WiFi is just the first step–WiMax will eventually provide much broader coverage within the next two years, especially in more rural areas.

In theory, they are on the right track. Local and state governments should not become wireless network providers, but they should practice oversight to make sure that companies in the business are delivering on their promises, particularly because they are leveraging locally-owned structures to provide wireless service. In other words, governments just can’t allow companies to just swoop in and take up valuable local resources without any checks and balances.

[Via Rochester Democrat and Chronicle]