January 2008

Part 1 of WiMAX at CES focused on the themes I heard in a panel with Sprint, Motorola, Intel and others. Part 2 is based on a sit-down session I had with Motorola’s Fred Wright, an SVP for cellular networks and broadband. Not surprisingly, Part 2 is more Motorola-specific. Here is what Fred Wright had to say about WiMAX in 2008 and the years ahead.

Fred Wright on:

WiMAX Skepticism
The people who are skeptical of WiMAX seem to believe that the technology’s success revolves around Sprint’s deployment. Motorola is very excited about the rollout, but it’s only one of 17 WiMAX contracts that Motorola has in 16 different countries. Last year was a critical year for proving what WiMAX could do. Now Motorola alone has more than 45 active WiMAX trials going on around the world.

WiMAX Revenue
Despite still being in the early stages of deployment, Motorola will see meaningful revenue from WiMAX this year, with acceleration in 2009. We expect the majority of Motorola’s WiMAX income to come from WiMAX access points, and expect revenue to be balanced globally among contracts in North America, EMEA, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region.

WiMAX Hardware for Consumers
Motorola has already introduced a WiMAX PC card and several WiMAX consumer premise equipment (CPE) devices. In 2008 the plan is to expand both product lines and add on WiMAX multimedia devices (formerly known as cell phones) toward the end of the year. These multimedia devices are being designed for multi-mode use with access to WiMAX and Wi-Fi networks. One will support EVDO and one will support GSM as well.

Interesting to note, most Motorola carrier customers are looking to buy CPE from Motorola and then distribute it their subscribers. However, Sprint is heavily focused on the retail model.

WiMAX and LTE
WiMAX has at least a two-year advantage over LTE, but that doesn’t mean LTE won’t be a significant business. By 2020 it’s reasonable to guess that LTE will make up 60% or more of the global market for 4G technology. In the meantime, a lot of the development work being done for WiMAX is serving two purposes. It’s the basis for today’s WiMAX deployments, but 70%-80% of it will also be applicable to LTE. Among other aspects, the same smart antenna, flex modem and core switching technology applies to both types of 4G networks.

{ 8 comments }

I enjoy the Super Bowl as much as the next person (particularly now that the Cowboys have been demoralized), but I’ve always thought it a bit absurd to buy a new TV for one game. Apparently so do more than 85% of the readers over on EngadgetHD. In a pre-Super-Bowl poll, respondents showed they are generally not inclined to upgrade in the next week.

Super Bowl aside, if you’re planning to upgrade to HD anyway, 2008 is a good year to do it. Take a look at just a small sampling of the HD content coming in the next 12 months.

• Comcast will offer 3,000 HD movies on-demand by the end of 2008
• Movie powerhouse MGM is bringing its HD flicks to FiOS before the end of the year
• HBO will have 26 HD channels by the second half of the year
• There will be more and more and more sports in HD, including the X-games (on now), all of the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness went all-HD last year), and much of the Olympics. Maybe the living room couch is better than game-side seats?

UPDATE: The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has announced the results of a new study by Sports Video Group saying the Super Bowl this year is expected to drive the purchase of just under two and a half million HD sets.

{ 4 comments }

Broadband Reports has a post up about AT&T’s new 10 Mbps service dropping on February 1^st, and I have a nice little chart to go along with Karl Bode’s analysis of the throughput numbers. (See above) With VDSL2, AT&T can deliver roughly 50 Mbps with copper loop lengths of 1,000 feet, and roughly 25 Mbps with lengths up to 3,000 feet. In each case that bandwidth is split between data and video services.

At short distances, VDSL2 is a great option for broadband delivery even as bandwidth demands continue to grow. And in many parts of the world DSL infrastructure is built out with short copper loops. Motorola’s latest VDSL gateway can reach throughput levels up to 100 Mbps.

{ 1 comment }

The news that HBO (a Time Warner company) will offer its programming for free online to HBO subscribers is all over the tech blogs today, with an interesting range of commentary. Most interesting to me is Cynthia Brumfield’s argument on whether or not the news goes against Time Warner’s planned initiative to test metered broadband billing. She says there’s no contradiction between Time Warner tightening broadband controls on the one hand and offering more content online on the other, and I agree. But I’d take it even a step further. HBO has to offer both online and traditional cable delivery of its content, and here’s why:

1. HBO is in the content game, which means its entire business is about reaching a wide audience.

2. Time Warner, parent of HBO, owns two kinds of video delivery systems – traditional cable networks and broadband Internet service. How could it not take advantage of that?

Traditional video networks are still by far the better choice for delivery from a technical standpoint, but the Internet has changed the rules of the game by offering flexibility. Sure Time Warner is worried about broadband capacity, but since video is eating up cable bandwidth anyway, it might as well be video that Time Warner owns.

Side note, HBO is one of the few networks with enough resources to dedicate people to understanding video distribution technology and video policy, according to SVP Craig Cuttner. (He spoke on this panel.) Hence decisions like the one last summer to move to all-HD, MPEG-4 broadcasting.

{ 6 comments }