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Miserable failure?
I´ve found an article about WIMAX performance.
What do u think?
Australian WiMAX pioneer trashes technology as "miserable failure"
Australia’s first WiMAX operator, Hervey Bay’s Buzz Broadband, has closed its network, with the CEO labeling the technology as a “disaster” that “failed miserably.”
In an astonishing tirade to an international WiMAX conference audience in Bangkok yesterday afternoon, CEO Garth Freeman slammed the technology, saying its non-line of sight performance was “non-existent” beyond just 2 kilometres from the base station, indoor performance decayed at just 400m and that latency rates reached as high as 1000 milliseconds. Poor latency and jitter made it unacceptable for many Internet applications and specifically VoIP, which Buzz has employed as the main selling point to induce people to shed their use of incumbent services.
Freeman highlighted his presentation with a warning to delegates, saying “WiMAX may not work.” He said that the technology was still “mired in opportunistic hype,” pointing to the fact most deployments were still in trials, that it was largely used by start-up carriers and was supported by “second-tier vendors”, which he contrasted with HSPA with 154 commercial networks already in operation and support from top tier vendors.
What made Freeman’s presentation most extraordinary was that just 12 months ago he fronted the same event with a generally positive appraisal of the platform which at that stage he had deployed just a few months before. At the time, Freeman said that his company had signed 10% of its 55,000 user target market in just two months, a market share that rose to 25%, on the back of an advertising campaign that highlighted value VoIP prices.
He did acknowledge at the time that the technology had indoor coverage issues, which he yesterday said had earned him a quick and negative reaction at the time from his supplier, Airspan. Other early WiMAX adopters have also reported issues with indoor coverage: VSNL in India reported indoor loss at just 200m from the base station at an IEEE conference last year.
HORSES FOR COURSES: Freeman says Buzz has now abandoned WiMAX in favour of a “horses for courses” policy. This includes use of the TD-CDMA standard at 1.9GHz—used by operators such as New Zealand’s Woosh Wireless—and a platform he described as wireless DOCSIS– a relatively little known technology that takes HFC plant and extends its capabilities via wireless mesh. He said wireless DOCSIS operates at up to 38Mbps in the 3.5GHz spectrum and its customer premises equipment supported two voice ports for under $A70 while it boasted “huge cell coverage.” He also was employing more conventional wireless mesh platforms at 2.4GHz that support up to 10Mbps with CPE voice ports costing less than A$80.
Despite his problems with WiMAX, Freeman is a believer that competitors should operate their own infrastructure and not depend on Telstra unbundled or wholesale offerings. Prior to Buzz he was involved in the rollout of regional Victorian HFC networks as an executive with Neighborhood Cable. He says the use of wireless is essential in Hervey Bay, because ADSL is blocked to 80% of the population because of Telstra’s use of pairgain and RIMs, while what ADSL ports are available are now largely exhausted. But years of successive government policies had weakened the case for standalone infrastructure, beginning with restrictive policies in the pay television market which he said undermined independent HFC deployments.
“I’m against government micromanagement of the market. Government should start to provide a conducive investment environment.”
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.”
Freeman’s frank words left many at the WiMAX event looking uncomfortable but none more so than his co-panelist Adrian de Brenni representing Opel Networks. De Brenni, standing in for an absent Jason Horley, said little new about Opel that hasn’t already been discussed, except to state that QoS would be a product feature of the future Opel wholesale offering “including voice.”
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by WiMAX Broadband Solutions on -
wireless DOCSIS? Now that is a technology with alot of momentum.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Molina on
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I know!
Just added this article for your opinions....i always remenber anybody can submit on Internet.
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Permalink Reply by WiMAX Broadband Solutions on
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Every technology has their naysayers. Ask Earthlink and all the other muni-wireless disaters. I know Airspan is supplier form many WiMAX deployments globally with a much better success rate.
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Permalink Reply by ZingMAX on -
One key factor here is timing. The gear that Buzz Broadband used was the first available release.
I know the specs for the product they used and our team would have expected those type of results in that setting, in that particular band and that version of gear. (version 1)
We've got the calculations to prove it!
From the front lines of WiMAX and the now "up to" product release 6.5 He would be singing a different tune, no doubt.
Considering higher approved power levels, better receive sensitivity and MiMO / Diversity ...
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Permalink Reply by Jose Dorville on -
Well, I see that this info dont say what Wimax revision they are using and so, what kind of equipment, but I think they are junk. Another thing is that, I see more numbers then facts, so his talking more about cost, then investments.
I think, they dont optimize there network to solve problems. They just make sales and no NPO for better services.
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Permalink Reply by WiMAX Broadband Solutions on
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I think this guy was looking for publicity and he found it. His comments are linked all over the web with publications like wired news and informationweek.com. So you're the captain of the ship and it's sinking fast.. what do you do? You blame the company that made the ship's motor. Amazing
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Permalink Reply by WiMAX Broadband Solutions on
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More articles on the Buzz Bombshell
WiMax Gets Less-Than-Max Grades in Australia
New York Times - United States
By Saul Hansell The WiMax technology has been put forward as a way
to shake up not one, but two oligopolies. It is a method of wirelessly
transmitting data ...
WiMAX Operator Calls It a "Disaster"
Gizmodo Australia - Sydney,NSW,Australia
An early WiMax operator has shuttered its network, and stunned an
audience at a WiMAX conference by calling it a disaster. The CEO of
the Australian company ...
Azulstar Upgrading its Wi-Fi Networks with WiMAX
TMCnet - USA
By Patrick Barnard Azulstar, which builds Wi-Fi and WiMAX networks
for carriers, governments and enterprises, is reportedly upgrading all of
its existing ...
Telstra calls WiMAX failure ‘nail in coffin' for Opel
The Line (subscription) - New Zealand
Telstra has pounced on a description by an Australian operator that
WiMAX technology was a "miserable failure," calling the
statements further evidence that ...
The WiMAX monetization challenge: When and how?
BetaNews - USA
By Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews While some WiMAX players, such as
Sprint, are still just dipping their toes into the waters , others are
already gaining an ...
WiMAX trashed – and praised – in Australian trials
iTWire - Australia
by Alex Zaharov-Reutt Two WiMAX operators in Australia are telling
very different stories of their experiences at a WiMAX conference
underway in Bangkok, ...
TCS Demonstrates Fast, Precise Location Fixes Over Live 4G WiMax ...
CNNMoney.com - USA
Broadband Wireless and WiMAX market research and analysis leader
Maravedis Inc. forecasts in its February 2008 report that WiMAX
subscribers will exceed 100 ...
See all stories on this topic
WiMax Is 'A Disaster' That 'Failed Miserably'
InformationWeek - Manhasset,NY,USA
The first WiMax operator to launch a WiMax network in
Australia has already shut the network down. The CEO of Hervey Bay’s Buzz
Broadband berated the ...
Australian operator says VoIP won't work on WiMAX
FierceVoIP - Washington,DC,USA
VoIP providers may be eagerly anticipating Clearwire and Sprint's next
dance onto the nationwide WiMAX network floor, but at least one
early adopter, ...
href="http://www.wireless-weblog.com/50226711/buzz_broadband_ceo_trashes_wimax.php">
Buzz Broadband CEO Trashes WiMax
"Ironically, the CEO was a speaker at the conference last year, when he spoke positively about WiMax (although criticising indoor reception, which he this year revealed had caused arguments between Buzz and their hardware suppliers, ...
title="http://www.wireless-weblog.com/">
href="http://woip.blogspot.com/2008/03/wimax-may-not-work.html">
WiMAX may not work
By Patrizia(Patrizia)
In an astonishing tirade to an international WiMAX conference audience in Bangkok yesterday afternoon, CEO Garth Freeman slammed the technology, saying its non-line of sight performance was “non-existent” beyond just 2 kilometres from ...
title="http://woip.blogspot.com/">
href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/wimax-gets-less-than-max-grades-in-australia/">
WiMax Gets Less-Than-Max Grades in Australia
By Saul Hansell
An Australian Internet provider said its attempts to provide wireless service through a technology called WiMax have failed. The signals simply don't travel far enough and have too many delays, it said.
href="http://techlahore.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/the-australian-wimax-disaster/">
The Australian WiMAX Disaster
By techlahore
We’ve been keeping you updated on all the various WiMAX deployments on their way in Pakistan. Other than the lacklustre marketing that plagued Wateen’s initial launch, so far has been so good. Today we got news from Australia that Buzz ...
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Permalink Reply by ZingMAX on
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I agree that Buzz may have been lazy with their "Network Performance Objectives "
However I remain steadfast in my statement that a big issue here was timing of launch.
Unrealistic expectations.
Or to put it another way the old battle of Marketing vs. Engineering.
Lastly Mike W. makes a great point regarding the captain of a sinking ship.
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Permalink Reply by ZingMAX on
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He "bought" the marketing for the good stuff, but only "paid" for the cheap hardware... and then had a fit... hahha thats funny
Acting like that would not fly very far or last long where I grew up in Detroit!
I hereby officially close this topic.
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Permalink Reply by WiMAX Broadband Solutions on
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Airspan defending themselves
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.
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Permalink Reply by Juan Fernandez on -
AirSpan, is getting a bad reputation. Now what is Nortel using??? Is it AirSpan?
I seen some very bad, deployment using AirSpan is this a coincidence?
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