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Bailing from the WiMax hype train

Nokia managed to kick up some dust last month after news emerged that it had quit the WiMax Forum. Shock! Horror! Calamity! And so on.

That’s how it played in the business media, anyway. Amid all the shock, horror and calamity, someone forgot to mention that this was old news. Nokia actually withdrew from the forum sometime last year, and only made headlines last month because it didn’t bother to renew its membership card.

The other thing many missed in all the excitement is that Nokia hasn’t actually given up on WiMax – it’s just not giving it top priority right now. That’s Nokia’s story, anyway. The official word from the company is that the WiMax Forum is “primarily about promoting existing WiMax technologies and interoperability among existing products”, and since Nokia has no plans to launch any WiMax products based on existing WiMax technologies (i.e. 802.16a and 802.16d), “it does not make sense for Nokia to put too much effort in the WiMax Forum at the moment.”

To which the conspiracy theorists leer in hushed voices: “Ooooo, but they WOULD say that, wouldn’t they? What with 3G on the rocks and cellular infrastructure prices under pressure and the company trying to sell low-cost base stations to developing markets! WiMax is a threat to their very existence!”

Maybe. But then that doesn’t explain why Nokia hasn’t actually denounced WiMax and points out that in fact it is still working on standardizing it through its membership with the IEEE.

To which the conspiracy theorists reply sotto voce: “Ooooo, but they WOULD say that, wouldn’t they?” And so on.

In a way, the fuss is understandable. After all, Nokia IS a co-founder of the WiMax Forum. But Nokia’s decision – whatever its “true” motive might be – is equally understandable. Seppo Aaltonen, Nokia’s wireless technology marketing director, tells me that WiMax is destined for greatness in the future but for the moment is “overhyped”.

And he’s right.


Broadband utopia

WiMax has built up an incredible momentum in the past 18 months – so much so that it’s swiftly vacuuming up headlines and support for rival IEEE technology 802.20. To hear some tell it, WiMax is not only the missing link between hotspots and true mobile broadband connectivity, it has the potential to smash up everything from 3G to fixed-line broadband.

Ironically, both 3G and fixed-line broadband are also going through something of a hype Renaissance at the moment. For many at the GSM Association, this is THE year that W-CDMA and EDGE will prove that they are Serious and Viable Technologies, and that 3G is not just a big money pit. For the CDMA Development Group, the discussion is already over – 1x has already proven the 3G business case, and 1x EV-DO will not only blow so-called W-CDMA off the map, it will also whack the hell out of Wi-Fi, WiMax, 802.20 and anything else you can throw at it. And where it can’t beat Wi-Fi, it’ll provide the backhaul.

Meanwhile, last month’s Broadband World Forum hosted by the IEC in Seoul was gleaming with optimism over the establishment of Planet Broadband. In the not so distant future, we will all have instant broadband access to voice, data and video wherever we happen to be (living room, kitchen, office, car, bus, city park, etc) via whatever interface device makes the most sense to use (PC, TV, PDA, mobile phone, car dashboard, refrigerator, Bluetooth headset, etc). And everyone will have more than enough money to pay for this – or at least everyone worth speaking of.

Hype? In this industry? Not a chance, Seppo.


WiMax can wait

Not that hype is in itself a bad thing. I dig visionary high-tech utopias as much as the next person, and let’s admit it – the telecoms sector wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without them.

Even so, a healthy dose of skepticism doesn’t hurt – especially after something like the dot-com bubble bust, which demonstrated, along with the buildout frenzies and 3G frequency auctions, just how carried away things can get in Hypeville.

WiMax may deliver everything it promises to bring, and it may even deliver them in the current time frame promised. As a potential end-user, I hope it does. The thing is, we’ve heard it before. 3G, LMDS, MMDS, even Wi-Fi – all technologies that were once “on the verge”, and all of which failed to deliver on time. Except Wi-Fi, which is a great technology that, for the time being, has the unfortunate characteristic of being unable to generate revenue proportionate to the hype for anyone but the equipment vendors.

None of this is any reason to write off WiMax before it has a chance to prove itself. But there’s a good chance that by the end of next year, at least some in the industry will look back on Nokia’s decision to wait on WiMax and say quietly to themselves, “Good call.”

http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=97645