Infrastructure partners crucial for mobile WiMAX deployment

With a mobile WiMAX soft launch just around the corner and a nearly nationwide deployment planned for the coming year, Sprint Nextel Corp. and its many partners are working feverishly on what many consider will be a two-to-three-year time-to-market advantage in rolling out next-generation services.
Considering the scope of the project, the cooperative development and buildout of mobile WiMAX will be quite a speedy feat if the timeline sticks. All of the involved companies appear to be on track to launch an entirely new network just 24 to 28 months after Sprint Nextel and Clearwire Corp. announced a partnership to build and brand their respective systems.
“The overall strategy is really focused on doing for the Internet what cellular did for voice 20 years ago,” Barry West, president of Sprint Nextel’s 4G mobile broadband business unit, said in an interview with RCR Wireless News. “What we are doing is building a network that will enable devices to be connected to the Internet anywhere people reasonably want to use the Internet.”
Voice services have grown about 300% since they became untethered, he said, and Sprint Nextel expects WiMAX to be a like-minded catalyst for comparable growth in Internet services.
Sprint Nextel is looking to add WiMAX to about 15,000 cellular tower sites by the end of 2008; most of which will be existing sites requiring the installation of new equipment for WiMAX services.
Big 3 for No. 3
The No. 3 wireless carrier found infrastructure partners in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Motorola Inc. and Nokia Siemens Networks for the series of detailed build out projects on the horizon.
“As far as the main infrastructure is concerned we’re very happy with what we have,” West said.
“Each of our major vendors we’re looking at roughly a third of our build program,” he added. Sprint Nextel nor its partners have disclosed the value of each of the deals, but the total deployment is projected to cost $2.5 to $3 billion with the majority of that cost resulting from the infrastructure buildout, West said.
“Each of our major vendors are looking at a similar split,” he continued.
Motorola
Motorola, which stands to gain heavily from its share of that split, is making a considerable bet on the future of WiMAX.
“We’re very excited about this technology. In our mind, this WiMAX technology is a game changer for many different reasons,” said Adolfo Masini, VP of product management in the wireless broadband group for Motorola’s MOTOwi4 WiMAX solutions.
“We made a corporate bet on WiMAX. We don’t call it a bet anymore because it’s a core of our business now,” he said.
“With all of these applications, very data-centric applications, that broadband pipe has to be big,” Masini said, adding that “rich, multimedia applications are being enabled by this technology.”
WiMAX is opening Motorola’s business up to many new segments, he said, including wireless, satellite, Internet service providers and other companies. “When some of these new guys come in they sort of want to do one-stop shopping and that’s benefited us,” he said. “What differentiates us is not only the technology, but the breadth of the portfolio.”
Motorola has already shipped more than 1,000 WiMAX base stations, inked 11 contracts and been active in more than 30 WiMAX trials thus far, Masini said.
“It’s been fun because it just brings a whole new opportunity base and these operators have a great technology,” he added.
Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson work on microwave, backhaul
“You really have to have the ecosystem, the cell sites, the backhaul, and everything else to make a viable service go,” West said. The company is working with Alcatel-Lucent and L.M. Ericsson on microwave stations and backhaul.
As the development of one of the nation’s first WiMAX networks gets under way, Sprint Nextel and its partners have co-located in Sprint Nextel’s WiMAX headquarters to reduce delays when a problem arises. West said the “direct, day-by-day contact” will help move things along much quicker than if each worked on the project from afar. “As always, you get the odd surprise, but nothing that’s a showstopper,” he said.
Broad ecosystem
“We have a very broad ecosystem developing and I think partly because of our choices we’ve helped develop the international scene,” West said, adding that more than 60 vendors have noted their interest in the technology in meetings over the past year. “The whole WiMAX train is really starting to build up speed here,” he said.
The Sprint 4G headquarters is also conveniently located near the WiMAX Certification Lab being built in Virginia. The facility is one of five test labs being built worldwide to conduct WiMAX Forum certification and performance testing. Beginning in October, the Virginia facility will be accepting devices for certification. The lab could also eventually support the convergence of dual-platform wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.
In addition to performance standards, Sprint Nextel is insisting on full interoperability with all of its vendors. West said his unit has already received Samsung equipment and is waiting for the other vendors to submit their products for trials and testing expected to begin in late October or early November.