MUNICIPAL BROADBAND - Carlini's Comments

WIMAX WORLD REVIEW

Filed Thursday, October 4. 2007

WiMAX will be a big alternative to big cities especially after the “free” Wi-Fi business model has fizzled.

Attending WiMAX World at Chicago’s McCormick Place last week should have been an eye opener to anyone who attended. There needs to be some big investments in network infrastructure. This can’t be delegated to a third-party service provider offering a “free service,” according to some of the executives who spoke in the panel discussions.

Nothing is free. Still, several cities thought taking a hands-off approach from an investment standpoint by bringing in a third party to build a wireless network would give them the benefits of ubiquitous wireless connectivity without putting any money into it. It doesn’t work that way. As I pointed out in columns back in June and August:

Anyone thinking third-party Wi-Fi is the ultimate answer is fooling themselves. There is no getting around the issue that a network infrastructure is a big capital investment that can provide great results if implemented correctly.
In many cases, cities didn’t turn to seasoned professionals. They would have told them to get something more substantial or that the network topologies being cited were inadequate. Instead, they bought off on the hype of a new wonder technology along with its evangelists.
Just as you wouldn’t expect fire fighters to use garden hoses to put out fires, you can’t expect network infrastructures to deliver huge amounts of bandwidth if you’re using a wireless network that was never designed to be a fire hose of bandwidth.
If we explain it that way, perhaps people will “get it right” instead of “getting burned” by inadequate network designs.

The people advising these cities to get a “free service” to add into the infrastructure without any investment while keeping the rights to control and oversee the services are just wrong. Their RFPs are also worthless because those who respond will match it with a worthless network.

It was clearly pointed out at one of the sessions that both providers and cities are “reassessing” their “free network” concept, which actually killed some “first deals”. Some service providers have gotten more selective in looking at municipal opportunities.

The bottom line is RFPs coming out from various cities that want something for nothing are being passed over. You need a real commitment from a municipality. It was also interesting to see that some industry executives were more apologetic for the fizzling out of municipal Wi-Fi projects.

Cutting Edge? Guess Again

One keynote speaker gave a good overview of why we are slipping in the United States. While he didn’t say it or directly imply it, that’s what I got out of it.

Won Pyo Hong, who is the executive vice president of Samsung’s telecom systems, pointed out some interesting developments in Korea, which seems to be more advanced in its networks as well as devices that people can already use.

He focused on the fact that the Korean market is very demanding for wireless connectivity and they already have external mobile WiMAX devices. Korean early adopters can be categorized with this information:

74 percent are individuals

80 percent are males

66 percent are in their 30s and 40s

26 percent are entrepreneurs

Here are some other interesting facts he pointed out:

First click on the Internet is at 3 years old

51.6 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds access the Internet 4.3 hours a day

What did I get out of his informative speech? We need to catch up and in a hurry.

We are well beyond the Information Age and even past the Internet Age. I would say we are at the Mobile Broadband Age where people have high-speed access from a mobile device that includes rich video capability. Aiming for anything less than that is like saying we want to move from records to eight-track tapes in the age of downloads.

There has been a big shift from searching the Web for text-based information to adding video content and social networks that mix all of this content together. Access for this type of content has to be capable from handheld devices and not just desktop or laptop computers.

Going the extra mile in development of network architecture and applying technology to enterprises has always been a strategic directive from my standpoint.

My philosophy has always been you have to spend money to make money. Unfortunately, most executives would rather cut corners or not even undertake a major technology upgrade for their organization. That is very shortsighted in light of what is being generated worldwide.

Being on a cutting-edge project and creating something no one else has is a great endeavor. Those endeavors are probably the best investment a public or private organization can undertake.

Sprint’s Xohm WiMAX service looks to be very promising and was discussed by its CTO (Barry West) at one of the discussions. They have partnered with Motorola and Nokia to offer a total solution for users who want both mobility and broadband. This is an endeavor they are currently working on and have committed to offer in many markets by next year.

Worthwhile Exhibits

Many of the exhibitors at the trade show had some interesting products and services that will have traction in the industry. You can tell the wireless services are behind in the U.S. because products like the handheld, folding Samsung Butterfly (SPH-P9000) are available in Korea today but are not yet available in the U.S.

It has a decent-sized video monitor as well as a keyboard. It is WiMAX enabled and has Bluetooth, a camera and a miniature Windows XP computer. It is the second device on this video. Simply put, the Butterfly will obsolete the Treo, Blackberry and other devices with a miniature keyboard.

Carlinism: Just as one course in first aid doesn’t make you a brain surgeon, one course in networks or a certificate doesn’t make you a network infrastructure consultant.