It's an exciting time in the wireless networks industry because end users are--for the first time ever--about to have access to true broadband Internet services completely wire-free. It's not just broadband networks on wheels in the figurative sense: Users are literally leaving the tethered world behind.
The public's insatiable appetite for advanced technology has allowed users to leave their desktops, and they demand that their high-speed Internet come along, whether it's on mobile phones, laptops or other devices.
A Motorola survey of the Millennial Generation (young adults ages 16-27, born computer literate, whose wireless-device use makes it a significant segment of the tech-hungry public) gives an indication of how much the rate of mobile data consumption could increase. Seventy percent of these young people said their expectations and demands are far greater than their parents' for rich media experiences (such as mobile TV or video) and on-the-go broadband access.
Throughout technology's evolution, there have been brilliant engineers churning out the Next Big Thing on pace with the public's demands. Now they are ready to deliver broadband technology that accelerates the seamless delivery of high-speed, multimedia mobile applications at a lower cost and with better performance. They're succeeding with WiMax, and another wireless broadband technology--Long-Term Evolution--is just around the corner.
Whether it's WiMax or LTE, high-capacity wireless broadband solutions are giving users unprecedented access to content and services on the go--wherever, whenever they need it. Both WiMax and LTE use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) technology and have similar attributes, including multiple-input/multiple-output and smart antenna technologies; flat, all-IP architecture; and similar network backbones. They also offer data rates several times faster than current 3G networks.
Motorola's quest to develop world-class wireless broadband solutions began years ago with a pre-WiMax broadband solution called Canopy. This OFDM-based point-to-multipoint solution operates in a variety of unlicensed spectrum bands around the world and is designed to provide very low-cost broadband wireless links or access points at fixed locations, typically single or multi-unit dwellings.
The success of Canopy--deployed in more than 120 countries--provided convincing evidence that there was pent-up, unmet demand for wireless broadband access. The technological and design advances achieved with Canopy provided a solid foundation for the launch of 802.16e mobile WiMax solutions. In fact, Motorola is building on its OFDM expertise and early success in WiMax 802.16e as it develops LTE solutions, estimating that about 75 percent of the basic application software and platform technology it developed for WiMax can be reused in its LTE products, thereby advancing development efforts.
A second major pre-WiMax technology that Motorola became involved in is the Next Net Expedience broadband wireless solution used by Clearwire in the United States, Inukshuk in Canada, MVS in Mexico, and many smaller customers around the world. Expedience is another OFDM-based pre-WiMax technology that is deployed in a cellular-like design, operating on the same frequencies that will be used for WiMax.
While Motorola was not involved with Expedience's development initially, the company used its expertise in Canopy, WiMax and OFDM technologies to refine the solution and develop WiMax transition products to help operators such as Clearwire migrate from Expedience to WiMax in U.S. markets. Like WiMax, Expedience offers both indoor and outdoor CPE units and PC data cards to let broadband users access the Internet when away from home. Motorola has shipped more than 1 million CPE units of Expedience technology over the past five years.
The road to WiMax also led to Motorola's development of a wireless broadband technology that has found a specific audience. Mesh networking solutions provide secure and reliable military-grade communications capabilities, often at high speeds, using a combination of 802.11 standards-based technologies, proprietary over-the-air protocols, and advanced mesh algorithms that enable the creation of a self-healing daisychain network. Mesh creates a new model of seamless mobility that's already transforming wireless data and voice communications for first responders in police work, at the scene of fires or on the battlefield, and in other settings where instant, wireless broadband information is needed. It also has the added benefit of excelling in extreme environmental conditions--from high-speed police pursuits to subzero weather conditions.
Mesh networking leverages the concept of a wired Internet where each node acts as a router/repeater for other nodes in the network. It doesn't matter whether these nodes are fixed pieces of network infrastructure or the mobile users themselves; the technology supports both modes simultaneously. The result is a decentralized and inexpensive mobile broadband network, since each node need only transmit as far as the next node. Nodes act as router/re-peaters to transmit data from nearby nodes to peers that are too far away to reach (multihopping), resulting in a network that can span a large distance, provide high data rates, and create non- line-of-sight connections in urban areas and mountainous regions alike.
The development curve continued with WiMax. Last Fall, reporters and analysts were treated to the first live demonstration of mobile WiMax hand-offs while cruising down the Chicago River during WiMax World USA. The four-cell trial network used standard Motorola WiMax access points, and the backhaul was provided by Motorola's wireless IP backhaul equipment to its hub location 25 miles away in Schaumburg, Ill., where a Motorola IMS server provided connectivity to the public switched telephone network. All this occurred in the challenging environment of a river lined with tall buildings, 30 feet below street level, and crossed by numerous steel bridges.
A similar mobile WiMax trial network was replicated at CES and CTIA events in Las Vegas, and at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Reporters, prospective customers and analysts test-drove the new mobile WiMax technology while being chauffeured in WiMax-enabled and -equipped SUVs.
The demos reinforced the huge performance potential of mobile WiMax. The new Clearwire Sprint joint venture plans to reach upwards of 140 million people in the United States by the end of 2010 with both fixed and fully mobile WiMax broadband service. While WiMax networks are already being launched, field trial activity for LTE is expected to be in full swing in 2009.
The benefits of both of these technologies are clear. WiMax and LTE not only bring the realization of true mobile broadband experience nearly anywhere (multimegabits with virtually no latency), but they also allow operators to introduce exciting services (HD video blogging, HD video-on-demand, media mobility, online gaming and others) and bring a significantly improved business proposition.
LTE won't replace WiMax--which will likely be deployed by entrepreneurial operators in "greenfield" environments--but it will be an alternative to WiMax, offering similar broadband data rates when deployed with wireless spectrum of comparable bandwidth. LTE is expected to be the technology of choice for most 3GPP and 3GPP2 mobile operators looking to migrate to a next-generation network. As LTE trials get under way this year, WiMax already has gained market acceptance. Motorola alone has 19 contracts for WiMax 802.16e networks with customers in 16 countries. The next step is to create a network on wheels as Motorola partners with Clearwire and Sprint to launch the largest mobile WiMax deployment in the world, starting with several major cities in 2008 and expanding rapidly across the United States over the next two to three years.
Access to these networks comes through customer premises equipment and data cards--in essence, wireless modems that provide voice and broadband data ports to single and multiple users. In coming months, we will begin to see true mobile Internet devices (MID) similar to the Nokia 810 MID just announced for use on WiMax networks.
WiMax and LTE subscribers will use their MIDs for uninterrupted mobile applications--Web browsing, voice-over-IP (VoIP) calls, video streaming and small-screen, live video services--while riding in vehicles or high-speed mass transportation. These applications are easy to visualize and test for the consumer. However, there also will be substantial gains in delivering networks on wheels for business and industry here and around the world. Consider:
• Remote order entry. The entire fleet is equipped for real-time inventory and data continuity to save time, error, fuel and more.
• Super sales force. They have access to everything on the network: materials, plans, contracts. Efficiencies help them move faster and get deals done.
• Video monitoring. This can dramatically reduce the cost of security location monitoring, no matter where the security force is. The result is less equipment and lower labor costs.
• Real-time meter reading, eliminating the need for employees in the field. Power and gas meters are just the beginning. Options will include tracking usage on vending machines and copiers.
Both WiMax and LTE will allow interconnection and hand-over to current 3G technologies for consistent access to the Internet and the various applications and services offered by the network operator, providing a seamless user experience. (WiMax and LTE are described as 4G technologies, but they should be described as 3.9G, as the International Telecommunications Union has not set final design and performance standards for 4G.)
It's expected that multimedia and video services will be primary applications on broadband networks. WiMax and LTE have data speeds fast enough to enable the downloading of a 45-minute, full-motion TV series video file in three to four minutes. Now consider the amount of bandwidth it would take to allow every consumer to watch any TV show at any time. That type of bandwidth will only be provided for the foreseeable future with fixed solutions requiring dedicated fiber or fiber/metallic to the home. However, the advent of the DVR has brought the ability to watch videos on demand. WiMax and LTE will offer consumers the ability to stream these videos to their MIDs.
WiMax and LTE will be complementary, as each has its own benefits and is designed to operate in spectrum specially allocated by governments around the world.
Most WiMax systems will be deployed as time-division duplex systems, where information is transmitted and received in the same block of spectrum. Most LTE systems will operate on frequency-division duplex spectrum, which has separate transmit and receive spectrum blocks.
By 2020, LTE may have a global edge in terms of total subscribers served worldwide, but it is unlikely that another technology will appear to compete with either WiMax or LTE for the dominance of broadband wireless consumers around the world. n
Fred Wright (fred.wright@motorola.com) is senior vice president for cellular networks and WiMax, home and networks mobility at Motorola Inc. He joined Motorola in 1993 after a 25-year career at Centel Corp., where he built and managed a major U.S. cellular telephone company. In the early 1980s, Wright built the first all-digital wireline metropolitan network linked by fiber optics in the United States.
About the author
Fred Wright (fred.wright@motorola.com is
senior vice president for cellular networks and WiMax, home and networks mobility at Motorola Inc. He joined Motorola in 1993 after a 25-year career at Centel Corp., where he built and managed a major U.S. cellular telephone company.
In the early 1980s, Wright built the first all-digital wireline metropolitan network linked by fiber optics in the United States.
