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EarthLink adds new elements to its wireless masterplan

WiMAX Trends by Caroline Gabriel

The major integrators are all taking a keen interest in the growing metrozone market, and are signing up their equipment partners to move in on the largest projects. The latest is IBM, which has worked with various partners in the past but is now making an early move into WiMAX, with a joint development with Alvarion.

IBM has been targeting the municipal wireless sector for some time and sees it as a major opportunity for its integration business among government bodies and also telcos, as these become more interested in – rather than hostile to – metrozones. It faces competition from a range of large equipment vendors that are capable not only of shipping kit but integrating and consulting on business models as well. For instance, Motorola has been quick off the blocks, working with Tropos and its own mesh and broadband wireless technologies as well as operator Earthlink. Nortel and Cisco are also announcing advanced mesh systems for cities, and could either work with IBM and other integration hopefuls like Hewlett Packard, or on their own.

IBM is now stepping up its activities as it sees the interest in metrozones turning into real dollars. In particular, it says it has seen a significant change of attitude from the major US telcos this year and has been approached by several large providers, looking for help in designing a metrozone technology and business framework that could then be proposed to municipalities in their areas. For instance, Qwest – one of the most aggressive anti-municipal operators – Time Warner Cable and Sprint all made proposals for the Minneapolis citywide network project, although the shortlisted candidates are Earthlink and local player US Internet.

IBM believes the initial reaction to metrozone projects was “kneejerk” and the telcos and cablecos have now realized they must risk cannibalizing their DSL business in order to keep control of an unstoppable force – and prevent companies like Earthlink turning themselves into serious competitors, should they create a large enough chain of metrozones, something that is well within the ISP’s sights at the moment. 

The municipalities are more open to telco involvement too, IBM comments. They do not wish to be service providers themselves, and in some cases are taking warnings to heart that they need experienced communications companies to ensure they run their systems effectively and with the maximum ROI. In many cases, large operators will also want to look for technology more complex than Wi-Fi mesh in order to support potential for licensed spectrum services alongside license-free or premium enterprise applications.

Many WiMAX suppliers have taken an interest in metrozones recently, with Airsp perhaps the most successful in practise with its major contract with Japan’s Yozan, which is creating a WiMAX/Wi-Fi network in Tokyo and other cities and hopes to add a spectrum license to its 5.8GHz/2.4GHz deployments next year.

Now IBM is giving Alvarion a major boost in this sector with the plan to develop and deliver WiMAX networks to cities, combined with IBM’s WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager software. This mixture has already been piloted by public safety authorities in Fresno, California. IBM not only brings well respected integration capabilities to large city projects, with the promise of reducing the risk of adopting a new technology and smaller vendor, but also starts to fill in WiMAX’ greatest current gap, in its carrier class software ecosystem. The WebSphere mobile capabilities manage access, security and can integrate portable IP applications and interfaces with a city’s core systems using wireless links and web services.

Interestingly, the Fresno system is operating mainly in the 900MHz unlicensed spectrum, which requires only 10% of the number of access points that 2.4GHz Wi-Fi needs in many cases. The CPE is placed in emergency response vehicles at a cost of $2,000 per car. There has been considerable doubt about using this for broadband wireless because of interference risks, though some companies like Airspan make broadband wireless equipment for it. WiMAX products could be adapted quite simply for this band though there are no plans to make it an official certified profile. Alvarion is using its proprietary BreezeAccess 900 but is likely to create a WiMAX-type implementation for this band.

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