WiMAX Summit: Don’t believe (or create) the hype

TAIPEI – If the WiMAX industry can learn anything from the mistakes of its 4G predecessors, it’s that overhyping a new technology can be dangerous. At the WiMAX Forum Operator Summit here, global carriers warned that creating unachievable expectations around the capabilities of WiMAX could create the same misconceptions over 3G in its first years of inception.

3G operators and vendors made unrealistic claims about the speeds of UMTS at the turn of the millennium, which were only met when high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) networks were introduced seven or eight years later, said Jan Nilsson, president of Far EasTone Telecom, a Taiwanese wireless operator. If the WiMAX community isn’t careful about how it bills 4G, it will fall into the same trap, Nilsson said.

“We need to learn from the mistakes of the mobile industry,” Nilsson said. The WiMAX community shouldn’t be pessimistic, he added, as WiMAX networks can do much of what is advertised, but he cautioned the industry to manage expectations.

Alvarion CEO Tzvika Friedman said that there are already aspects of WiMAX that have fallen to overhype, recalling early claims that WiMAX could deliver much faster speeds and propagate further distances than today’s deployments can match. Friedman, however, offered a simple solution: If the industry can truly get large-scale networks into commercial service soon, it will live up to many of its claims. He pointed out that WiMAX first came to the public eye only three or four years ago. Showing results in year four or five will do much to prevent the same disappointments that accompanied 3G. “We have to move, and we to have move fast,” he said.

Starent Networks CEO Ashraf Dahod said WiMAX operators cannot deploy broadband networks the way mobile operators deployed 3G, offering limited coverage and capacity. While 3G functioned primarily as a data addendum to voice networks, broadband data will be WiMAX’s prime, if not only, business case. If operators provide anything less than a broadband experience to their customers from the beginning, they’ll flounder, he said.

“Make sure a network is built so you can deliver a quality of experience to the end user so they will continue to use it,” Dahod said.

The WiMAX Forum started taking its members’ advice long before the summit. It has started moving away from a focus on WiMAX technology to the WiMAX business model as laid out by marquee operator Sprint and partner Intel. Sprint, which is combining its WiMAX assets and spectrum with Clearwire’s, is pursuing an open-access, retail-driven business plan, which will essentially allow customers to access the mobile Internet in the same manner they access it through home broadband connections. While many operators in developing countries are still focusing on WiMAX as a fixed wireless access technology, many operators developed countries as well as the Forum have picked up Sprint’s mantra.

“It’s really about the services you get,” said Forum CEO Ron Resnick. “It could be WiMAX. It could be any technology. It’s the technology that gets you to the Internet first.”