NLOS Vendors Take Aim

It was billed as a shootout, but no bodies littered the floor following the panel discussion on contrasting non-line-of-sight (NLOS) technology approaches at the Broadband Wireless World Forum in February. This was a contest of words.

In one corner was Hatim Zagloul, Wi-LAN (www.wilan.com) chairman & CEO. Wi-LAN is OFDM Forum (www.ofdm-forum.com) chair company. In the other was Ender Ayanoglu, Cisco wireless access business unit technical leader (www.cisco.com). Ayanoglu serves as chair of the Broadband Wireless Internet Forum (BWIF) (www.bwif.org).

From Iospan Wireless was Rajeev Krishnamoorthy, senior director. Iospan belongs to the Wireless DSL Consortium (www.wdslconsortium.com). Fourth member of the panel was Ralph Muse, NextNet Wireless president & CEO (www.nextnetwireless.com).

All four have developed various flavors of OFDM technology enabling NLOS delivery of wireless-broadband services, typically in the lower bands such as MMDS and U-NII. And because NLOS standards have not been adopted yet, each has more than a passing interest in the outcome of ongoing standards efforts.

The OFDM Forum was established to “develop a single, compatible standard for cost-effective, high-speed wireless networks on a variety of devices.”

BWIF bills itself as the “principal organization chartered with creating and developing next-generation fixed wireless standards, based on Vector OFDM and DOCSIS (data over cable service interface specifications).”

And the Wireless DSL Consortium's mission is to define, develop, implement and test a set of open interfaces for Wireless DSL products.

Muse's company doesn't belong to any of the groups.

“We're just about 50 people that have a product that does NLOS, and it works,” he said.

Much of the contention in the panel discussion centered on the issues of patents and timing.

“We hold the claim that anyone doing high-speed, 2-way OFDM is infringing on our patents,” Zagloul said.

Ayanoglu pointed out that Cisco has brought a number of patents covering OFDM and spatial diversity to the BWIF.

“Any member that joins BWIF gets free access to those intellectual property rights,” he said.

Zagloul responded by saying that the patent process is all about rewarding investors and patents.

“To join the BWIF, I have to sign a waiver of my patents,” he said. “So I (have to) give them my patent for no charge — that's if I want to become a supporting member. That's bullying and antitrust tactics.”

Muse commented that if the industry comes up with standards first and then tries to build products around them, it might come up with a product no one can afford.

“The marketplace should decide what works in the real world, and then we move toward making those marketplace leaders into standards, not the other way around,” he said.

“We have the viewpoint that the market will make the decision,” said Ayanoglu. “The stakeholders are the spectrum holders in the United States — WorldCom, Sprint, Nucentrix. They're going to make the decisions, and they're going to essentially create de facto standards.”

“(We should) look at the good technologies and see if we can adopt any of those instead of rushing in to adopt something that is ill conceived and won't fly” Krishnamoorthy said.

Zagloul told the others they should not be so “self-centered.”

“There is a much bigger world out there,” he said. “Europe already is launching systems. Customers are buying our network out there.”

However, in urging that the standards process be pushed further and faster, he did say that Wi-LAN would go along with whatever decision is made by the IEEE (www.ieee.com).

The OFDM Forum Fixed Wireless Access Group should have its final standards proposal for the IEEE's March meeting.