Silicon Valley becoming the 4G innovation valley!

Comment

Comment by Jose Puthenkulam on April 10, 2009 at 9:49am

Alan, excellent observations. Very much agree...

Comment by Alan J Weissberger on April 9, 2009 at 10:14pm

The San Jose Mercury reports that Clearwire plans to make fixed and mobile WiMAX service commercially available in Silicon Valley sometime next year. The cities and total area to be covered by the WiMAX network are still being worked out, said Todd Lewellen, market-launch director for Clearwire. But he said details about that should be forthcoming in a few months.

Once connected to the mobile WiMAX service, "you can be on a bus, your kids can be in the back seat of a car watching their favorite video, there are just a lot of cool things you can do," Lewellen said. Although the cost of the service here hasn't been determined, Lewellen said it probably would be comparable to what people pay in Portland, Ore., where basic mobile service costs $30 a month. In addition, WiMax customers will need to buy a $49.95 network connector (often called a "dongle"), which plugs into a USB port on their notebook PC or gadget, unless the end point device has a built-in WiMAX adapter.


Fixed WiMax service, that only connects a person"s home to the Internet, may cost about $20 a month. We would assume the speeds offered by Fixed WiMAX would be comparable or better than the "business class" DSL service AT&T offers here (this author pays $30 per month for 2.6M bit/sec downstream and about 800K b/sec upstream). Cable based Internet from Comcast is much more expensive, unless you have a triple play service. Hence, Clearwire's fixed WiMAX service should be quite competitive with wired broadband access.


Comment and Analysis:
We believe the following will happen if WiMAX does get deployed here in Silicon Valley within the next year:
1. Comcast will be a MVNO for mobile WiMAX, but not fixed WiMAX (which competes with its cable modem based Internet access). Sprint will probably only resell mobile WiMAX, as they do not have much of a presence here outside of cellular services.
2. More mobile WiMAX gadgets will be announced as the service becomes more available.
3. Fixed WiMAX will take market share away from AT&T's DSL service for residential users. It appears likely to be more cost effective, but we need to see the deployment details from Clearwire to be sure.
4. The Clear Spot residential gateway will be a big seller, when used in conjunction with fixed WiMAX service. That box will convert most Wi-Fi-enabled devices and PCs to WiMAX. The list includes smartphones (including the Apple iPhone, some RIM BlackBerry devices, Windows Mobile phones, the T-Mobile G1, and the Palm Pre), Wi-Fi-enabled game and music devices, as well as Wi-Fi-ready digital and video cameras. Effectively, the Clear Spot replaces the WiFi Access Point/Router that connects to a DSL or cable modem, while keeping your home WiFi network intact.

Comment by Alan J Weissberger on April 6, 2009 at 12:12pm

I found a web video on Cisco's web site:
Clearwire to Launch WiMAX Innovation Network to Silicon Valley Developers

http://blogs.cisco.com/sp/comments/clearwire_to_launch_wimax_innovation_network_to_silicon_valley_developers/

Comment by Alan J Weissberger on April 2, 2009 at 6:56pm

Who are the other early adoptors of WiMAX in Silicon Valley? How about Comcast as a service provider? I've had Comcast Digital Cable since 1999 and I know many people that use Comcast as an ISP (via cable modem access). The company has announced it will be an MVNO, reselling CLEAR in Portland, OR. But how about building out a WiMAX network in Silicon Valley.

Our joint venture silicon valley network (that Cisco has been involved in) is in a holding pattern. We need a WiMAX network that will cover everywhere from Palo Alto to San Jose, at the minimum. How about Comcast - investor and member of the Clearwire consortium- to build out mobile WiMAX here?

Comment by Alan J Weissberger on April 2, 2009 at 5:08pm

As a Santa Clara resident for 39 years (before this place was called Silicon Valley), I am very encouraged by the news that Clearwire is teaming up with Google, Cisco Systems and Intel to build a WiMax network in Silicon Valley. The network is for software developers to try out new applications that will run over WiMAX.

I've been touting the advantages of WiMAX for campus networks since 2004, when I proposed it at IEEE Globecom. Hopefully, this will kick off a trend.

The research aspects are very important, but Cisco must lead the way. They have many software and research people working on topics like Self Organizing Networks (Cisco presented on that topic at our IEEE ComSoc SCV February 2009 meeting). Let's hope they come up with some neat apps as well as enhancements to WiMAX security and management. Please see my related post on mobility management using MaaS (Mobility as a Service) and feel free to comment on it:

http://www.wimax360.com/forum/topics/managing-the-mobile-work-force