WiMAX wireless broadband works in rural Ireland

medO

Summarised results on a non-line of sight WiMAX broadband trial in Co Donegal involving "challenging terrain" and "substantial distance" from nearest high capacity network.

(Ignore the references to "O2" in this item in terms of broadband provision to households. Their objectives will be the usual ones of a mobile phone "monopolist" - ie EUR 60 per month with a download allowance of 50 MB (not GB!) So far this morning I have had 27 MB of traffic on my DSL connection).

Quote:

Alvarion Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALVR), the world's leading provider of wireless broadband solutions and supplier of specialized mobile systems, today announced that O2 plc, a leading mobile operator, and Siemens successfully completed a test of its BreezeMAX(TM) 3500, a WiMAX-ready solution. The system was used to provide broadband services to households and small businesses in Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal, Ireland. The trial was conducted over the span of a four month period and concluded in early 2005.

"After trialing Alvarion's WiMAX-ready system, we found its technology interesting as a natural extension to the wireless LAN hotspots we have deployed across Ireland to date," said Orlagh Nevin, Head of Business Services for O2 Ireland. "O2's approach is to ensure that we keep up to date with new and emerging technologies and by conducting trials such as the WiMAX trial in Gleann Cholm Cille, we get real information and feedback. Having conducted trials on a number of technologies, the results from the trial in Gleann Cholm Cille showed that WiMAX was a viable solution for delivering broadband services to the rural areas of Ireland."

With this BreezeMAX trial, Gleann Cholm Cille in Donegal joined selected European locations as pioneers in experiencing first-hand the benefits of WiMAX's quality of service (QoS), wide coverage and next generation non-line-of-sight (NLOS) performance. The Gleann Cholm Cille valley was selected as the location due to its challenging terrain and substantial distance from the nearest high-capacity network. BreezeMAX systems are operational in other Western European countries, including France and Spain.

"BreezeMAX's non-line-of-sight capabilities facilitate almost universal accessibility to customers in a large base station area, making it an efficient and cost effective technology to roll out," commented Brendan Martin, of Siemens. "It is exciting to take a major role in the trials and eventual deployments of WiMAX technology across Europe."

BreezeMAX is a third-generation OFDM platform with advanced NLOS functionality and is designed for operators to offer broadband IP-based voice and data services. In addition, it enables carriers to evolve their networks to industry standard solutions with all the benefits of vendor interoperability. Its carrier-class design supports high QoS and broadband speeds to enable carriers to offer both data and toll-quality voice to thousands of subscribers in a single cell.

"As expected, responses have been positive regarding the technology, and especially optimistic about the business case and overall service provisioning," said Zvi Slonimsky, CEO of Alvarion. "Deployment of BreezeMAX systems for fixed broadband access today speaks well to Alvarion's clear roadmap and vision. There is no doubt that WiMAX is the future for providing broadband in many areas in Ireland and throughout the world."

medO

http://www.siemens.com/communications.

www.alvarion.com

http://archives.moneyplans.net/frontend209-verify-15298.html

cgarvey

Absolutely completely useless information!!! (no offense to the OP!).. what we all want to know is how far the NLOS worked, what speeds, weather dependant in NLOS. LOS vs NLOS variances in QoS..etc.

There is no doubt that WiMAX is the future for providing broadband in many areas in Ireland

There is some doubt, otherwise I wouldn't be asking these questions than many GBS and rural communities are asking.

.cg

Sponge Bob

It worKed so well O2 turned it off

No weather probs and no tech probs but O2 were simply not prepared to supply 2Mbits to a rural GBS .

Blaster99

Sorry to go OT, but what's this about O2 doing hotspots? I would incidently have thought that hotspots is the worst thing that can ever happen to a mobile operator, and there's no info on their web site about hotspots.

medO

cgarvey wrote:

Absolutely completely useless information!!! (no offense to the OP!).. what we all want to know is how far the NLOS worked, what speeds, weather dependant in NLOS. LOS vs NLOS variances in QoS..etc.

The biggest availability risk with WiMAX in Europe, and especially in Ireland, has little to do with speed, range, weather dependency, etc.

Will it be screwed up by the regulatory mafia? If one shops around, landline calls are free or almost free once one has paid the fixed cost of network access. Thanks to relatively open competition. The same does not apply to the mobile networks. Because the market across Europe is restricted to organisations who pay multi-million / billion bribes to the regulatory mafia for controlled access to this space.

Ice cream and pralines would be a lot more expensive and tasteless if their supply was regulated to a few Mafiosi members by a zillion euro auction process.

Mobile phone networks are looking to WiMAX in the same way as they looked to WiFi – ie to grab the space and charge EUR 10.00+ per hour for internet access to preserve their over priced mobile GPRS or 3G monopoly. Make no mistake about it, much of Europe is trying to kill WiMAX in the same way as they are trying to kill VoIP (eg by numbering and frequency restrictions etc).

The next iteration of WiMAX will provide for mobile (services on the move). A delightful development if you are in the mobile space, IDT!

One hopes that cgarvey is not posting from this perspective!

MedO

oscarBravo

medO wrote:

The biggest availability risk with WiMAX in Europe, and especially in Ireland, has little to do with speed, range, weather dependency, etc.

The biggest risk with WiMAX is hype. Leaving that aside...

medO wrote:

Mobile phone networks are looking to WiMAX in the same way as they looked to WiFi – ie to grab the space and charge EUR 10.00+ per hour for internet access to preserve their over priced mobile GPRS or 3G monopoly. Make no mistake about it, much of Europe is trying to kill WiMAX in the same way as they are trying to kill VoIP (eg by numbering and frequency restrictions etc).

WiMAX will work on licence-exempt spectrum. That pretty much kills off the prospect of a spectrum land-grab.

medO wrote:

One hopes that cgarvey is not posting from this perspective!

cgarvey is a moderator of the IrelandOffline board. Hope you didn't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions.

medO

oscarBravo wrote:

The biggest risk with WiMAX is hype. Leaving that aside... WiMAX will work on licence-exempt spectrum. That pretty much kills off the prospect of a spectrum land-grab. cgarvey is a moderator of the IrelandOffline board. Hope you didn't hurt yourself jumping to conclusions.

1) While WiMAX will work on licence-exempt spectrum, much / most of the valuable spectrum is going to license holders only.

Please see:
http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/wimax/306013.pdf

2) I say the following with the greatest respect. It would be great if the good people who operate boards.ie chilled out a bit more. I wasn't jumping to any conclusions. I'm a libertarian. The world works best when we have freedom of expression and people can probe others' thoughts without the other side taking offence, etc.

All great media outlets derive their status from the freedom and diversity of opinions they present. Without censorship. Or agro. Or a feeling that they are influenced by "deep pockets", political matters, their employer, their clients. Or anything else on the agenda front.


medO

oscarBravo

medO wrote:

1) While WiMAX will work on licence-exempt spectrum, much / most of the valuable spectrum is going to license holders only.

Please see:
http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/wimax/306013.pdf

The licenced spectrum available for WiMAX is in the 2.5 and 3.5GHz bands. 2.5 is allocated exclusively to MMDS in this country AFAIK, and ComReg have shown no signs of allowing it to be used for 2-way broadband purposes. 3.5 is already available for broadband licencing, and at reasonable cost, but in a form that is to all intents and purposes useless for rural broadband.

medO wrote:

2) I say the following with the greatest respect. It would be great if the good people who operate boards.ie chilled out a bit more. I wasn't jumping to any conclusions. I'm a libertarian. The world works best when we have freedom of expression and people can probe others' thoughts without the other side taking offence, etc.

All great media outlets derive their status from the freedom and diversity of opinions they present. Without censorship. Or agro. Or a feeling that they are influenced by "deep pockets", political matters, their employer, their clients. Or anything else on the agenda front.

I'm not one of the good people who operate boards.ie and neither is cgarvey. For a libertarian, you were quick to draw an inference from cgarvey's challenge to your initial point. Freedom of speech cuts both ways.

Back to my point: there's an assumption that the NLOS nature of WiMAX means that somehow microwaves will start going around corners and over mountains. They won't. WiMAX is not a substitute for intelligent RF planning in a rural environment.

damien

medO wrote:

I'm a libertarian.

I'm a movementarian myself but I don't see how that clarifies any argument I may make.

Sponge Bob

oscarBravo wrote:

The licenced spectrum available for WiMAX is in the 2.5 and 3.5GHz bands. 2.5 is allocated exclusively to MMDS in this country AFAIK, and ComReg have shown no signs of allowing it to be used for 2-way broadband purposes. 3.5 is already available for broadband licencing, and at reasonable cost, but in a form that is to all intents and purposes useless for rural broadband.

2.5 -2.7 was all allocated for MMDS until a year back. Now 2.5-2.6 is parked by Comreg for 3g expansion (I poo poo yiz not and unused of course and 2.6-2.7 is still used for MMDS

the 3.5 band is mainly unused because eircom got most of it so naturally it uses very little, and mainly in urban areas if it does . Comreg will not release eircom coverage for fear of court cases against Comreg !

the remainder of 3.5 band is a weird licencing scheme but not bad by Comreg standards, it needs a revisit to sort guard zones as does Eircoms 3.5 licence (in full) in 2006

(I believe a key rollout target must be met by eircom by Jan 2006 )

Comreg also released a strategy consultation doc last month with a stated objective of doing absolutely nothing to the sizeable 3.6-4.2 band before 2008

Wimax could maybe have traction by then dunno if Comreg will ?

ballooba

Where there are several large players it is called an Oligopoly not a Monopoly.

I am so smart like .

medO

ballooba wrote:

Where there are several large players it is called an Oligopoly not a Monopoly.

I am so smart like .

"Oligopoly" assumes an otherwise "free" market (like washing powder or cars).

When the state sets out to limit the number of participants in a market by detailed regulation and licensing, the state is basically outsourcing the provision of a product or service for which it retains monopoly rights to one or more service providers. Hence it remains a monopoly. The customer pays more and service quality remains poor.

It is like staying at a hotel at a large theme park which might have several different hotel chains operating within the walls. All operating under a license agreement with the park owner. Invariably each hotel within the theme park will be more expensive than other hotel properties operated by the same chain in free market locations.

medO