Sprint XOHM

xrayman · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:10 pm Post subject:

Is The Sprint WiMax Project Defunct?
No solid news as of late, just more rumors. Sprint has promised fresh Xohm news to be released at CTIA, the largest wireless show in the world, April 1, 2008. The senior vice president of Mobile Broadband for Sprint's Xohm business unit Atish Gude and Director of Xohm Product Marketing Jared Peterson will be speaking.
Until them a good compilation of facts and speculation can be found in this article. http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206903348&pgno=1&queryText=

Michael · Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 9:40 am Post subject:

Alex and myself are going to CTIA in a few weeks and we should know A LOT more and will be reporting on what we find.
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evdoman · EVDO User Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

Xohm is dead, and now other WiMax networks (including internationally) are running for the exits too: http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/23/1512220&from=rss The technology, in real-world use, is inferior to EvDO Rev B.

I hope Verizon Wireless is smart and decides to do with RevB what they did with RevA... improve backhauling and start upgrading towers in batches, beginning with areas of highest demand. RevB is just a software upgrade, so it has the massive advantage of being incredibly cheaper than builing out an entirely new network or technology. Cheaper for the consumer too, as it is backwards-compatible. Would give VZW the edge over Sprint too, as Sprint is focused on WiMax, has no RevB, and has no money to do either Smile

CraigCraig · EVDO Heavy User Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 141

It is difficult to believe that large corporations would spend millions or billions of dollars without doing basic tests of WiMax.

From the same article that is referenced in the referenced post...

<i>"Not all WiMAX operators are unhappy.

Internode says an Airspan-supplied network is providing consistent average speeds of 6Mbps at distances up to 30km, with CEO Simon Hackett describing the platform as “proven.”</i>

xenophon · EVDO Addict Joined: 30 Aug 2005 Posts: 1969

evdoman · EVDO User Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

Sprint backed off and the company cited in the article backed off. I would have to research to cite other examples I've seen of other companies backing off, but if you assert that no one else is running for the exits, I'll accept that for now since I'm too busy to do my due diligence.

As for RevB not happening because RevC is the LTE competitor... that isnt quite true. RevC might be more similar to LTE than RevB, but RevB is still in competition with it, just as is RevA, Rev0, 1x, DSL, Cable modems, and dialup. (That is, all are internet connections that one can trade off for another - some with huge differences like mobility, others with smaller differences like speed/latency.) If consumers dont show enough preference for LTE or RevC (UMB) speeds, then RevB might do better. I maintain that whiel LTE/RevC speeds would be a dream, the vast majority of users would be more than satisifed with RevB speeds. Because backhauling to support it and the upgrade itself are much cheaper than building our LTE or RevC, I think it is the preferable option for the next few years. All VZW has to do is do what they did in upgrading Rev0 to RevA, and they will have a new corner on the high speed mobile market (and take away a lot more share from land connections, which will now be more comparable in speed).

n6gn · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:28 am Post subject:

evdoman · EVDO User Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

I don't presume you meant that they will need ten times as many cell towers to upgrade to RevB, RevC, WiMax, LTE, or any other faster technology - did you?

n6gn · Posted: Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:37 pm Post subject:

xrayman · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject:

Barry West, Sprint CTO and president of its XOHM business unit, to deliver a keynote address on April 22 at WCA 2008. He is expected to discuss the upcoming launch of commercial XOHM service in the Metropolitan Washington, Baltimore and Chicago markets.
http://investinginwireless.com/News/032508a.asp

evdoman · EVDO User Joined: 26 Apr 2005 Posts: 61

Or maybe discuss the non-launch Smile

JGriggs · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject:

WiMAX is alive and well. Cheap carriers are the problem.

Marketing Release:

Date: 3/24/2008
Re: Buzz Broadband
Public Statements Concerning WiMAX and Airspan by the CEO of Australian WISP, Buzz Broadband

This week, at a WiMAX conference in Thailand, the CEO Buzz Broadband of Australia railed at the audience that WiMAX was a “disaster”. CEO Garth Freeman made several disparaging remarks about the range of WiMAX systems and their ability to carry VoIP traffic.
Buzz Broadband deployed Airspan MicroMAXd, ProST, and EasyST equipment to around 200 users, the same equipment that is installed in many of the 100 or so other Airspan WiMAX deployments. In addition to broadband services, Buzz Broadband intended also to offer VoIP services to its subscribers. Mr. Freeman’s recent statements highlighted two complaints: the range of the solution, and the quality of service (QoS) capabilities for voice traffic.
With regard to range, although Airspan offers both micro-cell and macro-cell base station solutions, Buzz Broadband opted to go with the less-expensive micro-cell base stations in order to reduce cost. This was a well understood tradeoff of cost vs. range. In support of larger cell radii, particularly in support of indoor desktop CPE devices, Airspan offers the HiperMAX base station, which offers the best link budget in the industry for an 802.16d-2004 solution.
Regarding QoS for VoIP, MicroMAX certainly offers appropriate QoS for wire-line quality voice support, but, as an access technology, can only do so for the portion of the link between the user device and the base station. In the case of Buzz Broadband, we know that there were significant under-provisioning issues in the core network which connected the Airspan equipment to the Internet. Very early in the relationship, Airspan technical services determined that Buzz’ backhaul network was considerably under-dimensioned (again to save cost) and lacked sufficient QoS, and that these factors were the direct cause of VoIP quality issues in the network. Airspan even went so far as to offer to fund a third-party analysis to help Buzz understand these issues. Both Airspan’s help and third party assistance were refused by Mr. Freeman.
At Airspan, we pride ourselves on our customer service and excellent products. In the case of Mr. Freeman’s company Buzz Broadband, we exhausted all avenues to help this customer re-engineer their core network and resolve these service issues. In the end, with Mr. Freeman rejecting help from the outside, the technical and financial resources of Buzz Broadband were not sufficient to deploy a functioning network to the satisfaction of its customers. We regret the distress caused by Buzz’ poor network architecture decisions to the customers in need of Broadband Internet access and VoIP services.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Freeman felt the need to broadcast his difficulties in such a public fashion. WiMAX has proven to be enormously successful from a technical standpoint, and Buzz’ allegations, even when so easily dismissed, are a distraction to the WiMAX industry and ultimately a disservice to the millions of satisfied broadband wireless access consumers worldwide.
If you should have any questions regarding this or any other concern, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Airspan on 561 893-8643 or dbyrne@airspan.com.
Best Regards,
Declan Byrne Chief Marketing Officer Airspan Networks, Inc.

http://www.phonemag.com/airspan-strike-back-at-wimax-critique-buzz-broadband-were-cheap-031914.php

xrayman · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:03 pm Post subject:

New $3b deal in process for a XOHM JV
Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Bright House Networks and Google to provide funding.
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-comcast-time-warner-talking-to-clearwire-sprint-on-national-wi-max-netw/

JGriggs · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 6:11 pm Post subject:

More references to Buzz Broadband items brought up recently.
Buzz was using 3.5 GHz, instead of the 2.5 GHz band that Sprint will be using.

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12100BWCV6A0

isamu · EVDO User Joined: 02 Feb 2007 Posts: 55

Are these new XOHM services/gadgets/etc supposed to improve latency/ping times?