Waiting for Wimax
A major player in the Broadband Wireless hardware space took us to lunch today with the intent of introducing some new products and clarifying their roadmap. As I was sitting and listening to their spiel about the upcoming “future sets� of the hardware I really began to think about the current reality of the Broadband Wireless industry. So here is the question If the product had the feature set that I was looking for, but it was based on a proprietary hardware platform would I adopt or wait for unlicensed Wimax?
You have to understand that the promise of unlicensed Wimax has been a real Samuel Beckett story for the last 18 months; We all sit around waiting for it to arrive, we have been promised and yet the next day we sit around without it. Broadband Wireless companies just sit hoping that someone will come along and offer up a solution.
Knowing what I know about the status of unlicensed Wimax in the USA would I accept a solution that met the customers needs today with a roadmap to standardization tomorrow? You bet I would.
It sounds simple right? Find a product that fits the customer’s requirements of VoIP, QOS and 3-6Mbps of symmetrical bandwidth with a range of about 5 miles LOS and provide an upgrade path when your hardware is forum certified. It’s not as easy as it sounds – I have been searching for over a year for a vendor who has enough confidence in their product in the unlicensed spectrum to provide an upgrade path to a Wimax certified option to no avail.
Most vendors are focusing on the international market or licensed Wimax so it leaves the North American market with a problem in search of a solution. So what is the solution?
The best choice at this time would be to evaluate the merits of the proprietary vendor solutions, evaluate some yet uncertified Wimax 5.8 hardware and also go on the hunt for some licensed spectrum to conduct field trials. Customers are demanding features and you have to have a plan to deliver.
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