Ericsson gives up on WiMAX

Mikael Persson, strategy and business development in Ericsson's Networks business unit is due to deliver a presentation titled "WiMAX, Why Indeed?" at the conference, being held in Dubai 16-17 April, and in the programme notes for the event Ericsson states: "Ericsson has chosen as of December 2006 to discontinue development in WiMAX infrastructure. This presentation will outline some of the key areas Ericsson considered before choosing to abandon this technology in favour of HSPA (high speed packet access). Specific areas for discussion include; historical lessons learnt around establishing a standard to achieving the mass market growth, comparison of physical performance of WiMAX versus HSPA and finally some poignant questions as to the commercial viability of WiMAX, given the ongoing success of HSPA and the needs this platform can deliver to, for operators, developers and end users alike both now and in the future."

Ericsson has just shot itself in the foot with this decision. Or has it?Could it be that LTE is so close to WiMAX that they are interchangeable?

Telmex launches WiMAX service

Telmex Chile has launched its WiMAX network in 15 towns and cities across the country. The network, based on the 802.16e-2005 standard for fixed, nomadic and mobile usage in the 3.5GHz frequency band, uses Alcatel-Lucent's 9100 WiMAX end-to-end solution. The company is initially targeting SMEs with the service, which will include fixed wireless telephony and broadband connectivity. Telmex hopes to expand the service to five more cities in coming weeks and by the end of 2007 expects to have covered 91% of Chile's municipalities. The service starts at CLP19,900(USD37.12) per month.

Airspan Commits to the Future — WIMAX

Airspan Commits to the Future — WIMAX

NEC and Kineto Partner on Femtocell Market

NEC’s UMA-enabled Home Gateway Solution enables mobile operators to deploy a complete end-to-end femtocell solution, from the femtocell CPE to the supporting core infrastructure, which is comprised of the NEC Home Gateway Network Controller (HGNC). Based on Kineto’s industry leading UNC, the HGNC enables mobile operators to leverage the 3GPP UMA standard to securely and cost-effectively support large scale femtocell deployments. The key advantage of the UMA-enabled HGNC is that it interfaces to the operators existing core network with standard IuCS/IuPS interfaces, enabling faster time to market as well as full service transparency for the end user.

ITU set to upgrade WiMAX to 3G classification

IMT-2000 classification would qualify WiMAX for IMT-2000 spectrum allocations at WRC-07, when the 2.3-2.4GHz and 3.4-3.6GHz bands will be considered for inclusion and the 3G community will reportedly be asking for 1.7GHz of new spectrum.

Fixed WiMAX is now deployed in Europe at 3.5GHz, while the 2.3GHz and 2.5-2.6GHz bands are used for mobile WiMAX. The latter band comes under IMT-2000’s auspices and has until now been earmarked as 3G-expansion spectrum.

Ericsson Baffled By Vodafone CEO’s WiMax Over LTE Talk

Ericsson today expressed surprise at Vodafone chief Arun Sarin’s willingness to consider WiMAX instead of LTE for the next phase of its technology evolution.

EDGE to Reach 1Mbps in 2009

Today Ericsson announced that it expects to make its 1Mbps EDGE Evolution network upgrades available by 2009. EDGE Evolution is a software upgrade for the existing EDGE data network hardware that runs on GSM networks. EDGE Evolution devices will be capable of data rates as much as 300 percent faster than current EDGE systems. This means that GSM device users will be able to enjoy connections of up to 1Mbps in speed - similar to those currently enjoyed by users on CDMA EV-DO and WCDMA 3G networks.

Ericsson claims that it supplies its EDGE equipment to over half of the 196 EDGE networks that are in use throughout the world today.

This is an important milestone in bringing GSM networks closer to 3G data speeds.