Google and ALU India point to WiMAX' main chances

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Google and ALU India point to WiMAX' main chances

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 30 April, 2009

READ MORE: India | Alcatel-Lucent | Google | WiMAX

As LTE approaches the peak of the traditional new technology hype curve, WiMAX is fighting to maintain profile, but in the week of the WiMAX Forum's Asia conference in Singapore, the two key opportunities for the platform were highlighted - supporting new open internet models, and extending broadband in emerging economies.

In the former category, Clearwire and Korea Telecom have been lonely trailblazers, but are now being joined by new mobile internet players like UQ in Japan, seeking to disrupt the traditional telecoms landscapes of their countries. UQ - a consortium led by cellco KDDI - pointed to the main reasons why a CDMA operator would also invest in WiMAX. President Takashi Tanaka told the Singapore conference: "Mobile internet in Japan is fake. Most mobile users in Japan use mobile internet [HSPA and EV-DO], but complain regularly about speed, the limited browser, limited content, small screen and small keyboard. WiMAX can meet those needs, so why not deploy it?"

Clearwire remains the main flagwaver for disruptive WiMAX models, and as such it carries a burden far greater than just achieving revenue and profit as a service provider. In particular, backers Google and Intel see it as far more than an investment, but rather as a testbed for the open access mobile web models they favor. Google has regularly invested in various wireless networks in order to test out new applications and business approaches, most famously by creating a Wi-Fi metrozone in its home base of Mountain View in Silicon Valley. Now it will also use spare capacity in Clearwire's vast store of 2.5GHz spectrum for "experimental tests" - one of the attractions of investing in the operator, according to reports in MarketWatch. Its efforts could range from launching services directly as an MVNO; testing new ways of using Android devices; or offering spectrum to innovative services providers on a wholesale basis, a model Google has often discussed.

The other big opportunity for WiMAX is in underserved, but high growth, markets, most notably India. One of the most significant development efforts geared to India has been Alcatel-Lucent's collaboration with the country's C-DOT technology research center, a venture set up over four years ago and geared to creating entirely new formats for WiMAX devices, to support low cost, low power roll-outs and new applications. This week, the C-DOT Alcatel-Lucent Research Centre (CARC) received WiMAX Forum certification for the 2.5GHz version of its 500 Series family of indoor CPE reference designs. "This cements CARC's ongoing efforts towards bringing in open standard low cost CPE designs to the Mobile WiMAX ecosystem," said CARC's CEO Sridhar Venkatesh.