Spectrum Crisis Impact on Data Caps

The uproar over major wireless carriers capping data usage is getting louder. This week, a major carrier announced it will be ending unlimited data plans even for customers with “grandfathered-in” status when they introduce tiered shared plans this summer.

Data caps may frustrate customers, but they shouldn’t blame wireless providers. The caps are the natural result of the government’s inability to make more spectrum available quickly. The spectrum crisis requires measured controls on the volume of data-use to ensure a carrier’s network can provide fast and reliable LTE for as many consumers as possible.

Even as carriers spend billions of dollars to build-out their network capability, demand has greatly out-paced supply of data, especially in high-density population centers like New York or Washington D.C. Smart phones and tablets sales continue to rise. According to a recent Mobile Data Traffic report by Cisco, smart phone data usage tripled from 2010 to 2011 and mobile data grew 2.3 times in 2011, marking the fourth consecutive year it has more than doubled. The report also notes 4G connection generates 28 times more traffic than non-4G connection.

These products are designed and marketed on their ability to use LTE for broadband services that require an exponentially greater amount of data than email, text messaging, and basic web browsing. Just a few years back, low bandwidth services were enough to satisfy the on-the-go customer. But with new services and content from providers like Netflix, YouTube, Hulu and ESPN, the public’s expectations and habits have changed. New patterns of consumption are straining network capacity today, and will be unsustainable in the very near future without significant amounts of new mobile spectrum.

Until the FCC moves ahead with new spectrum auctions, data caps are necessary to deal with network congestion. Continuing to provide unlimited data is not a viable option today, and would not be in the best interest of wireless consumers as a whole.

LightSquared Standoff: Technology, Not Politics

Karl Rove recently weighed in on the dispute between LightSquared and the GPS community, reiterating LightSquared’s claim that GPS is “poaching” off of LightSquared spectrum. The problem is that GPS was there first.

LightSquared was granted a conditional FCC waiver to use its spectrum terrestrially only if it caused no interference with nearby spectrum. LightSquared acknowledged potential interference problems by offering to not use the channels nearest to GPS devices and lowering the power output that was initially going to be used for their signal. However, the results of extensive testing with participation by all parties demonstrated that engineering solutions would not eliminate the potential for harmful interference.

There is no evidence the Government wanted LightSquared to fail. But it does want GPS to succeed. National security and public safety depend on it.

Small Cell Site Development Webinar

Site Development in a DAS World, now available on WCAI's YouTube Channel.

Small Cell Webinar Tomorrow

Site Development in a DAS World

Thursday, March 29, 2012
4:00pm ET - Free of charge

Register Now

Shortcomings of the macro network due to the physics of radio waves and certain building materials has led to the development of small cell site development through in-building and other Distributed Antenna Systems - DAS. But deployment is not as straightforward as a traditional tower or rooftop. Join our panelists to learn more about these issues and potential solutions, as small cells begin to play an even more critical role in the wireless industry.

Presented by David Saab - VP of Development - SSC
Moderated by Chris Horne - CTO - LBA Group

Making the Case for Reliable Wireless Broadband in the Metro

By Ronny Haraldsvik, SVP/CMO, BelAir Networks

It may not be a surprise that unreliable experiences are preventing subscribers from using video applications and accessing online commerce sites. But that this may be holding back billions in revenue, is news.

A recent survey we did with TNS Research shows that 44% of mobile subscribers find the metropolitan mobile broadband experience inadequate when they leave the home or office; a figure that rises to 57% for smartphone users. This number is higher in United Kingdom where 64% experience access issues.

Mobile video services and application revenues are already seeing the impact: A lack of reliable mobile broadband networks is already putting off 64% of subscribers from using mobile video services – this figure rises to 71% for smartphone users.

This may of course impact the potential for higher customer churn. When asked who they believe is responsible for resolving problems with mobile Internet service, 77% of people first turn to the mobile network provider. No big surprise there. However, close to 12% held the handset manufacturer responsible.

If mobile network providers were to charge for reliable coverage, both smartphone users and average subscribers would pay $7-8 dollars per month, on top of existing monthly service plans, with the age 16-24 demographic willing to pay up to $10. This constitutes tens of billions of dollars in potential additional annual revenue, which suggests that return on investments of additional wireless network deployments in metropolitan areas would pay back in months.

The opportunities are many. The opportunity cost of doing nothing can amount to $ billions.

Scalable service provider Wi-Fi and multi-access small cell networks have a role to play as Wireless as a Service becomes a reality later this year.

Service providers seeking additional revenue or business models, now more than ever, have the opportunity to bundle or evolve existing services to target managed services for SMB, education and hospitality markets. New business models include:

• Managed Services for small and medium businesses, retail shops, malls and building owners using Wi-Fi or multimode small cells (Wi-Fi, 3G/Wi-Fi) for indoor, outdoor and campus coverage for their own business and customer.
• Managed Services for businesses that offer private or public wireless access for their customers, vendors and partners
• Ad-location and per-sub pricing models emerge as an option
• Hosted Services where small cell networks enable shared access across business users and roaming service provider subscribers with integration to the service provider customers’ own core networks for billing/authentication
• MVNO shared access small cell networks with secure integration to the customers’ core networks for billing/authentication or to the carrier’s core for fully managed/hosted MVNO services
• Co-location Services enabling multiple operators to share common network infrastructure

At this year’s Mobile world Congress, taking place February 27 – March 1, BelAir Networks will showcase the benefits of highly scalable and integrated Service Provider Wi-Fi, mobile offload and new business model examples.

See you in Barcelona.

Reprinted from the BelAir Networks blog.

WCAI Applauds Congress for Passing Incentive Spectrum Auction Legislation

WCAI applauds Congress for passing legislation to make more wireless spectrum available. This legislation will cement our global leadership in mobile broadband communications, create thousands of jobs, and give public safety the network it needs when our first responders stand in harm’s way. It is also a testament to the enduring ability of our nation's leaders in Congress to come together when our nation's most critical issues are at stake.

New Study Shows Every 10% Increase in 4G Adoption Creates 231,000 Jobs

Today leading economists Rob Shapiro and Kevin Hassett released a study analyzing the impact of the adoption of 4G mobile technologies on the U.S. economy. (The study is available in pdf here.) A comparison of wireless technology penetration rates to state-by-state employment data shows that the transition from 3G to 4G mobile technologies should create more than 231,000 jobs for every 10 percentage point gain in adoption rates within a year. This means that a 40 percent gain in 4G adoption would produce nearly 1 million new jobs. These results provide powerful evidence that our national job creation strategy should seek to accelerate the deployment of 4G infrastructure.

The study also demonstrates the critical role 4G mobile technologies will play in achieving other national goals related to health care, energy, e-commerce, and cloud-based innovation. The shift to 4G would:

• Accelerate mobile e-commerce, which grew from about $1.4 billion in 2009 to between $6 billion and $9 billion in 2011;
• Enhance savings from the wide use of electronic medical records created and accessed wirelessly, along with other “mHealth” applications;
• Save $10 billion by further reducing power outages in the nation’s electricity networks; and
• Enable the market for cloud-based services to reach $39 billion by 2016.

Mobile service providers are already investing billions of dollars to deploy 4G infrastructure. But they can’t achieve these goals on their own. Congress and the FCC must make available more spectrum for the United States to sustain its mobile advantage. Today’s evidence shows just how much the success of our economy depends on it.

To hear directly from the authors about the paper, come see them in person in Washington on Thursday, or participate in a live web video briefing/discussion later that afternoon. You can learn more about each presentation or RSVP here.

Bright Lights, Gig Cities -- BelAir Networks Big 4 Network Predictions for 2012

By Ronny Haraldsvik, CMO/SVP Marketing, BelAir Networks

There will be all kinds of wireless devices unwrapped over the coming holiday season. Whether that’s e-readers, tablets, laptops or smartphones, one thing is for sure: they will feed people’s insatiable appetite for mobile data. And that’s only going to continue as we move into 2012. What impact will this have on the mobile broadband industry?

Based on trends observed through BelAirBI Business Intelligence and data extrapolated from both internal and third party sources, we have compiled 4 Big Network Predictions for 2012. When combined, these predictions all point to the emergence of the Metro Gig Zone offering bright lights for mobile broadband, particularly in big cities where wireless networks are challenged by highly dense pockets of data usage:

1. Big Users and Big Content will Consume Bigger Capacity in Metropolitan areas: 10% of subscribers based in Metropolitan areas, using smartphones and laptops, will consume 90% of all 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi network capacity available. In addition, video-based access to information (CNN, SKYTV, ESPN) and content based over-the-top services (Netflix, Google YouTube), will account for over 90% of all metropolitan broadband access over 3G, LTE and Wi-Fi networks. Of this one-to-one and one-to-many video-based communications using Skype, Facebook and other social applications will soon account for 5%.
2. Big Business and Big New Vertical Markets will create Bigger Opportunities for Carriers: The rise of Wireless-as-a-Service (WaaS) for indoor-outdoor Wi-Fi and cellular services will see enterprise networking vendors and carriers go head-to-head in the market for wireless solutions for SMBs, stadiums and shopping malls. In addition, mobile and fixed carriers will also compete with Enterprise WLAN vendors and resellers in vertical markets such as education, hospitality and real estate high rises, with leased, fixed cost and subscriber-based revenue models. The removal of massive tower investments and time-consuming civil approvals for small cell networks supporting will also open the door for new entrants (previously non-service providers) to enter the metropolitan broadband access market.
3. Big Broadband Experiences will Become Bigger Differentiators for Consumer Facing Organizations: The quest for a better mobile broadband experience will impact user behavior with regard to metropolitan travel patterns. Routes, stopovers and destinations offering consistent and reliable mobile broadband service, irrespective of the wireless access technology will benefit from increased customer traffic. Shopping malls, large hotel chains, and large consumer brands will differentiate themselves by offering free or earned (i.e. points based) broadband access and day/weekend based promotions using GPS-enabled access points for serving up local ads and offers.
4. Big Networks will Become Bigger with Small Networks: There will be 100% growth in metropolitan mobile offload and Wi-Fi services data traffic. When a broadband network is deployed, traffic will double within 6 months. Wi-Fi follows the same daily traffic trending statistics as subscribers using LTE and 3G. Subsequently, mobile carriers worldwide will surpass 100 billion Wi-Fi connections from their subscribers by the end of 2012 by integrating Wi-Fi with their 3G and LTE network strategies. We will also see the first 100k small cell network deployment in the metropolitan area of a country using combinations of Wi-Fi, 3G, and LTE. At the same time 100 mobile operators and Fixed Broadband Service Providers worldwide will have announced small cell trials or commercial deployments.

Reprinted from Life in the Small Cell: BelAir Networks Blog

Complete Convergence of Communications and Computing Platforms Is Here

Now that the term “convergence” has become passé, it’s finally happening. The distinctions between formerly separate communications networks and devices are blurring. Wired and wireless networks will soon be providing seamlessly integrated services; licensed and unlicensed spectrum are used by the same service provider; the same communications network can simultaneously serve residential, enterprise, and vertical markets; the PC and the TV are becoming indistinguishable; wireless phones are replacing wired phones; tablets are replacing TVs and phones alike; and the smartphone is replacing literally everything: With a smartphone, you no longer need a wired phone, a calendar, an address book, a notepad, a clock, a calculator, a camera, a map, a music player, a thermometer, a photo album, a desktop, a newsstand, books, a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia set, a video player, board games, a compass, a remote control, a guitar tuner, a tape recorder, etc.

As platforms converge, the nature of the technology used to transmit communications will become increasingly irrelevant to the consumer. Whether video is delivered via over the air broadcast, traditional cable, satellite, IPTV, an over-the-top service accessed via the Internet through a Blu-Ray player, or from the cloud to a smartphone, the consumer’s question will be: What can I do with it? (Where can I see it? What device can I use? Can I transition seamlessly from one location, time, or device to another? What apps can I use to interact with it? How can I share the experience with someone else?) Imagine a consumer who tires partway through an HD movie on the widescreen at home and goes to bed. During her subway commute the next morning, she swipes her wireless tablet, and the operating system asks whether she would like to continue the movie. She taps the screen and starts watching at the same point she stopped the previous night. No single industry participant or network can seamlessly and consistently provide such services today.

That’s changing rapidly. Companies that provide software, operating systems, devices, storage, cloud computing, networks, and content are collaborating to form communications platforms capable of providing truly converged communications services. Converged communications services are consumer-centric: they allow the consumer to select appropriate services, they embrace auto-provisioning, and they offer seamless integration. Domestic wireless networks are a critical component of converged communications platforms within the U.S., but they are only one component of a much larger ecosystem. Providers of operating systems, applications, devices, and content are competing across video, data, and wireless delivery networks on a global basis. This global competition among converging communications platforms is playing a significant role in the state of competition among domestic mobile network operators. New applications and technological development is occurring more rapidly than ever in an environment of increasing traffic volumes and spectrum scarcity. The result is intense, chaotic competition.

The FCC’s traditional analysis of competition in the mobile segment – which emphasizes facilities-based services provided by network operators at retail to residential consumers – does not adequately capture the competitive dynamics of converged communications platforms. The convergence of communications and computing platforms, wireline and wireless integration, spectrum exhaust, macro-network offload, rapid technology deployment, wholesale and MVNO relationships in macro and micro radio access networks and the backhaul segment, converged devices and operating systems, and M2M services are all driving intense, chaotic competition in the mobile segment. The FCC should expand its traditional analysis to recognize this changing reality and its impact on mobile competition.

(For more information, see the reply comments WCAI submitted today in the FCC’s proceeding on the state of mobile wireless competition.)

The FCC's New Connect America and Mobility Funds: What They Mean for You

The FCC's new $4.5 billion Connect America Fund reforms the decades-old Universal Service Fund to promote modernization of the nation's communications infrastructure and bring broadband Internet services to millions of people who currently don't have access. Its Mobility Fund will assure that next generation mobile broadband services are more widely available in unserved rural portions of the US. In addition, the Order's sweeping reforms of the intercarrier compensation regime will affect both traditional carriers and providers of interconnected VoIP service.

WCAI will hold a webinar at 2:30pm ET on Dec. 13 to discuss these new developments and what they mean to WCAI's constituency. WCAI Counsel Paul Sinderbrand will moderate a discussion by Russ Hanser and Chuck Keller, former FCC staffers who are now partners at Wilkinson Barker, Knauer, LLP. The webinar - "The FCC's New Connect America and Mobility Funds: What They Mean for You" - is free of charge and open to all. Register Now!

Small Cells Advance at 4GWorld

By Greg Friesen, VP of Product Management, DragonWave Inc.

One of the top themes at 4GWorld in Chicago was the advancement of small cells. A new industry term that is being called several names, from small cells to Metro Cells to MicroCell to Pico, but all refer to street-level, urban cellular deployments. It was really encouraging to hear a lot of affirmative thoughts from industry experts that this type of small cell network architecture can, in fact, bring higher capacity per user, as well as improve indoor coverage. With growing constraints on spectrum, and as spectral efficiency limits are quickly being reached, there was overwhelming agreement at the show that small cells are the best way to meet the increasing mobile user data demands. Small cells are also a key piece to delivering improved indoor mobile coverage.

The 4GWorld focus on small cells was well timed with two product announcements DragonWave made at the show. The first was the introduction of two new microcellular backhaul products, Avenue Link and Avenue Site. The second announcement was a partnership with FiberTower to use its spectrum in conjunction with our Avenue products, allowing both companies to offer integrated microcellular backhaul solutions.

DragonWave’s Avenue product line leverages the small form factor, all-outdoor Horizon Compact Plus products, combined with a 5” mini-antenna to offer street level microcellular backhaul. The mini-antennas operate in 24Ghz, 26Hz, 28GHz, 32 GHz, 38 GHz and 60 GHz. With FiberTower offering 24 and 39 GHz spectrum covering 99% of the United States, the partnership, ensures that Avenue products are deployable for their entire U.S. customer base.

The Avenue Site product is unique to the industry by integrating all the equipment at a cell-site tower into a single unit that is deployable on a lamp pole, traffic light or side of a building. The Avenue Site includes three independent, easily aligned, high-capacity packet backhaul links, a UPS power supply, battery backup, Ethernet switching, a GPS antenna and a 4G base station slot.

With the introduction of small cellular architectures, there is a whole new set of deployment challenges that Avenue is designed to address. The first challenge is providing street-level, high capacity backhaul. As this architecture requires a five- to ten-fold increase in the number of sites, the next challenge is to reduce per site TCO by an order of magnitude. Avenue achieves this by reducing site lease costs, maintenance costs, CAPEX and installation costs through integration and micro site optimization. In addition, because many installers will not be trained in telecom, and likely will be the same staff used for other city maintenance, installation must be simplified. Features like self-test, integration, and simple alignment help to greatly streamline the installation process.

Even though small cells may still be in their infancy, it’s clear that carriers are preparing to build infill networks over the next few years, and we’re committed to stay at the front of this adoption curve.

What’s Next for Mobile Communications?

It took 120 years for the world to connect 1 billion people. It took 14 years to connect the next 3 billion. Since the early 1980s and the beginning of the mobile phone revolution until now, people have come to expect always being connected to their friends through e-mail, social networking, text messaging or just a phone call. The question is: “What’s next?”

WCAI will hold a member-only webinar to examine the evolution of the mobile phone. From an analog cellular transmission device to LTE smartphones of today, we’ll look at where we started 30 years ago and how the industry will grow in the next five years. The webinar, called Evolution of Mobility: Where We've Been and Where We Are Going, is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 10 at 4 pm ET and features Eric Estroff, head of product collaboration at Nokia. Register Now!

WCAI Kicks Off Spectrum Summit, Meetings at 4G World

WCAI kicked off its program at 4G World in Chicago today with a closed-door 2.5 GHz Operator Meeting. The meeting brought together representatives from over a dozen 2.5 GHz licensees for a lively roundtable discussion of some of the most pressing issues, including operational challenges, equipment availability, what works in marketing and social media, spectrum protection, bandwidth management strategies, white spaces, regulatory challenges and much more.

Still ahead is the WCAI Spectrum Summit scheduled to begin at 1 pm CT in Room S-404D at McCormick Place. The Summit will explore the implementation of the Obama Administration’s plans to free up 500 MHz of spectrum, expand mobile access, increase the amount of unlicensed spectrum, build a nationwide public safety network, and deploy smart grid. Panel discussions will cover such topics as broadcast incentive auctions, national public safety network deployment, rebanding 2 GHz for mobile broadband, spectrum bands suitable for smart grid and government deployment, and options and opportunities for meeting spectrum capacity needs for fixed networks and networks operating in rural areas. The Summit will bring together representatives from the FCC, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Sempra Energy Utilities, FiberTower, Alvarion, SpeedConnect, BeamSpeed, Enforta (Russia), KeyOn Communications, JAB Wireless and other key industry players.

Last but not least, WCAI will hold an Awards Ceremony at its annual Networking Dinner tomorrow, Oct. 25 at Smith & Wollensky, a classic Chicago steakhouse.

Timing Solutions

Time for an Update on Timing Solutions

By Errol Binda, Sr. Manager, Solutions Marketing, Aviat Networks

Our partner, Symmetricom, recently announced the launching of a new segment of their SyncWorld ecosystem for microwave backhaul. Our hat's off to them; this is great news for Symmetricom and the new players that are now on board. We boarded this train awhile back. After a couple years of collaborative testing between us, we first joined the ecosystem when it was initially launched in March at CTIA 2011.

So, what have we learned since then you might ask?

Well for one, packet based timing is still growing in interest, evaluation, and deployment. Customers around the world - including mobile operators, state and utility providers and others - are increasingly looking for timing solutions that operate over their Ethernet fiber and microwave network as effectively as their TDM timing solutions do. A recent Heavy Reading analyst report projects close to 2 million cell sites will have deployed the two most dominant solutions, IEEE 1588v2 and Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE), by 2015.

Secondly, we've learned this is by no means the technology race it started out to be. Remember when Blu-ray and HD-DVD were competing a few years ago? Or perhaps that has well faded into memory. Well, I still recall the industry buzz a couple years ago about whether Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) was going to kill IEEE 1588v2, or vice-versa. Who was going to come out on top?

Telecom watchers and players are always primed for a tech battle it seems. Well lo and behold; this battle has become more of an alliance, as of late.

The dominant discussion today is now about how BOTH these technologies can co-exist, and where best to deploy them in a network, either side by side or in parallel, with one backing up the other. Hmmm, now that's an interesting conclusion to a tech battle.

Case in point, a couple of our customers are planning to deploy both technologies to take advantage of their respective strengths and are in the process of doing just this. See this whitepaper for more information about synchronization over microwave backhaul or maybe this one for insight into deploying IEEE1588v2 synchronization.

So, with the reality today that packet timing is still growing and that options for packet timing (including TDM, 1588v2, SyncE, and GPS) will continue to co-exist for a long time, it becomes even more critical to seek experience when it comes to planning your sync migration.

An ecosystem is probably a good place to start, especially with those players that have been at it for some time.

Reprinted from the Aviat Networks Blog.

Broadband Myths

"Faster, Better, Cheaper" Broadband Wireless Product Myths

Lynda Partner

I bought a new car last month and a big selling feature to me was fuel economy. I compared the stats carefully to others and was really pleased with what my selected car manufacturer claimed. However my actual fuel economy wasn’t anything close to what the data sheet said it would be. When I called the dealer to ask, he gave me a long lecture about how fuel consumption stats were calculated under very specific conditions - in other words “results may vary”.

When it comes to broadband wireless, it seems there aren’t many commonly accepted definitions for the attributes we use to compare radios. Many attributes are open to interpretation. Some vendors are aggressive in their numbers, others less so, but that makes it really difficult for prospective customers to compare one radio to another or to believe you’ll realize exactly what the data sheet is promising.

So before you end up buying a radio that doesn’t perform exactly as the data sheet said it would, you might want to ask a few questions, especially in the areas of speed, environmental certifications and open standards - three areas that are very open to interpretation.

Myth 1: Our radio delivers high capacity (FASTER) You’ve heard it before- “Our radio delivers lots of Mbps”. Claims like this would lead you to believe the product can actually deliver the stated Mbps of data payload. However, for radios that operate in unlicensed bands many factors contribute to lower effective bandwidth, such as:

• Protocols. If a CSMA protocol is used to manage access to the air interface, it will consume about 50% of the available bandwidth, leaving at best 50% of the promised Mbps under ideal link conditions (excellent line of sight, no interference... etc.)
• Channel Size. Super high Mbps can only be achieved if you were able to use the full 40 MHz channel. This is an unrealistic expectation as a 40 MHz channel represents 90% of the bandwidth available in the unlicensed 5.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz bands. Since other users will be using these bands, you will never get full use of a 40 MHz channel.
• Distance - radios have their highest capacity at short distances but as the distance increases the capacity of some radios drops quickly.

All this taken into account, you may see a real payload delivery of less than one third the stated Mbps - a huge difference! For unlicensed band radios, the truth is that interference, excess demand, distance, and packet sizes can all contribute to a lower effective bandwidth. How the radio is designed in terms of the air interface, protocol and error correction is critical for optimal performance.

Your takeaway: Ask the vendor for test cases that include interference, distance and packet sizes and other test conditions to get a real picture of payload capacity.

Myth 2: Our radio is “ABC” Certified (BETTER) A product may be compliant, certified or both. A product is “compliant” when it meets certain minimum standards or measures but it may not be “certified”. Product certification involves processes to prove a product meets minimum standards. Wikipedia goes on to say “Product certification is provided by an authority that accredits the performance or constituents of products, systems, or components. Examples of these authorities are national standards, standards writing organizations, certification organizations, and testing organizations.” In other words, product certification is a lengthy, sometimes costly process.
However there is nothing to stop anyone from stating that their product is, for example, “ABC-compliant” even if they haven’t received independent verification. A good example is environmental certification - where the data sheet says the radio is IP67 / NEMA-6X certified to operate in harsh outdoor environments, will work over an industrial temperature range of -40 to +60 degrees C and meet ASTM-B928 to work in salt-laden marine environments. The truth is that the radio must be independently certified (not simply designed) to meet these standards to ensure the radio works as you hoped it would.

Your takeaway: Ask what certifications a product has earned and ask for proof of independent certification.

Myth 3: Our radio supports open standards (CHEAPER) Open standards is one of the most ill-defined terms in our industry. To many, this statement would lead you to believe the radio will work seamlessly with radio accessories such as cables and power supplies from other manufacturers giving you the option to source alternative components and to minimize your inventory. NEVER ASSUME. A radio that is specified to be open standards may mean the radio meets the open standards (i.e. WiFi, OFDM...etc) but it may also mean you are required to buy the radio accessories and network accessories from the radio manufacturer. As the total cost of the radio includes cables, power supplies, switches and routers, it’s important to consider the price and availability of all components. A lower cost radio may end up being more expensive if your only option is proprietary cables, proprietary power supplies and proprietary Ethernet switches and routers. So don’t assume - ask.

Your takeaway: Don’t assume - ask what they mean by support of open standards. Ask if the radio supports standard cables, power supplies and networking gear from third parties.

Conclusion:

You have probably heard the saying “Faster, Better, Cheaper- Pick Two”. Radio vendors are notorious for saying their radios can reach incredible speeds (faster), environmentally certified (better), and meet open standards (cheaper). However, take a moment to think critically about the statements your radio vendor is making and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Reprinted from the Redline Communications Blog

4G Service

What is 4G Wireless Service?

When purchasing a wireless device, consumers are often confused about the meaning of 4G service and the speed of their wireless phone service. At the request of the Consumer Awareness Project, WCAI President Fred Campbell created a field guide to simplify this very technical issue and provide background information on the wireless technology and the history of its development. Read more here.

Carrier Wi-Fi

A Case for Carrier Wi-Fi

By Stephen Rayment, BelAir Networks

Everybody loves free Wi-Fi but not everyone acknowledges that the best people to run Wi-Fi networks are the folks that run networks for a living, i.e. mobile carriers and cable operators. In her article, "The Myth of Free Wi-Fi," in BBC News Magazine, Virginia Brown bemoans the lack of free Wi-Fi but stops short of coming up with a sustainable solution. I think that the solution lies in more Carrier Wi-Fi networks. Even those who want to view Wi-Fi as a public utility, akin to electricity, would acknowledge that you want experts running the grid.

Of course, I'm biased. BelAir Networks builds Carrier Wi-Fi gear. We sell our Carrier Wi-Fi gear to Tier One carriers and we help them design and deploy big Carrier Wi-Fi networks. So, yes, I'm biased. But, I would also argue that I do have some unique experience and perspective to offer on the topic.

And like most of you, I'm sure, I am a mobile broadband user. And, as such, here's why I think users should want carriers to run Wi-Fi networks:

First, because experience has proven that only carriers can make large-scale Wi-Fi networks free. The BBC brings up the Swindon example but there were others - does anyone remember Earthlink? Meanwhile, major carriers like AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision have all deployed large-scale Carrier Wi-Fi networks offering free Wi-Fi services to their subscribers.

Sure, you can argue that you have to be a subscriber to another one of the carrier's services in order to qualify for their free Wi-Fi. But, let's face it, most of us do subscribe to the services of a mobile carrier or cable operator, or both. So, chances are that if your carrier offered free Wi-Fi, you would probably qualify.

Carriers are also in the best position to make your Wi-Fi experience more seamless and secure. The concepts of secure seamless roaming (SSR) and session mobility (SM) are supported by carriers who want to make Wi-Fi as easy to use as cellular. The new industry standards known as Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot are all about SSR and carriers are driving these initiatives.

In a recent report on Wi-Fi Hotspots, In-Stat research listed network capacity as one of the potential inhibitors to Wi-Fi Hotspot growth. They stated that as more people use Wi-Fi hotspots more often and for higher bandwidth activities (like video), this increased demand could create a bottleneck that would need to be addressed through bandwidth management and increased backhaul. Carriers can do that. They do that in their networks every day.

Sure, carriers don't offer free Wi-Fi for nothing (that doesn't sound right but you get what I mean). Carriers deploy Wi-Fi to help offload mobile data traffic in congested cell sites, in order to ensure a better mobile broadband user experience. They offer it as a value-added benefit to their valuable subscribers. And they use it because it contributes to the profitability of their networks. Carriers know how to run sustainable networks - that's their business. Carriers know what kind of equipment to buy to ensure that the network won't break down - otherwise their OpEx would be out of control. Networks that aren't sustainable, where costs outweigh benefits, fail. And you end up with another Swindon.

Let's face it, Wi-Fi was originally developed as a residential and enterprise technology. But now that people are increasingly depending on Wi-Fi when they're out and about it is becoming a critical part of the whole mobile broadband equation. It's no longer a case of just installing a couple of APs and calling it a day. Even businesses that offer free Wi-Fi aren't doing it themselves anymore. In the US, Wi-Fi in Starbucks is run by AT&T. Businesses recognize that Wi-Fi is no longer just an amenity, it is on its way to becoming a network necessity. And because of that, they know it is best to get the network experts involved. The people that build and run networks for a living.

I think it's pretty obvious that carriers have a lot to gain from Wi-Fi but it's also obvious that users have much to gain from Carrier Wi-Fi. It's really one of those (trite expression alert!) win-win situations.

Reprinted from BelAir Networks Blog