iTWire - Sierra Wireless debuts 900MHz HSPA embedded modem in Australia

Sierra Wireless debuts 900MHz HSPA embedded modem in Australia

By Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 01 October 2008 04:39

Sierra Wireless, the company that supplies many of the external broadband wireless modems sold by Australian mobile operators, has chosen Australia to debut its new 900MHz HSPA embedded modem, its first 900MHz product, citing the 'world leading' 900MHz 3G network rollouts being undertaken by Optus & Vodafone.

Both Optus and Vodafone are making extensive use of this frequency to expand their 3G network coverage to approach that of Telstra's Next G, because it requires far fewer base stations than the 2100MHz used for their initial 3G rollouts. Optus claims it will have coverage of 96 percent of the population by December 2008. And 98 percent by December 2009, compared to only 60 percent in December 2007.

Vodafone also plans to have 98 percent coverage by the end of 2009 and recently announced a 900MHz USB modem, believed to be sourced from Huawei.

The module, the MC8792V, is aimed at original equipment manufacturers of fixed wireless terminals, point-of-sale terminals`, laptops and other devices. It supports HSPA at 900, 1900 and 2100MHz and downstream data speeds of 7.2Mbps and upstream of 2.0Mbps, but is upgradeable to 5.76Mbps. It also has an inbuilt GPS receiver enabling it to be used for location based services. Volume shipments are expected to begin late in the fourth quarter, 2008.

Sierra Wireless has yet to announce an external (USB, PCMCIA or ExpressCard) 900MHz unit, but as the company leverages the same chipsets and other technologies one is likely to be available before too long.

It has no plans at present to produce devices that will operate on both the Telstra Next G frequency of 850MHz and the 900MHz of Optus and Vodafone, Larry Zibrik, director of product management for the company's global embedded module product line, told iTWire "At present the architecture of our chipmaker does not support it, but I am guessing that will change."

Zibrik said that, in addition to its embedded modules, Sierra predominantly sold USB modules to the consumer market and ExpressCard to the enterprise market. However he added that the market for ExpressCard devices in general had not grown nearly as fast as expected.

The MC8792V could start appearing in laptops - Sierra has around 12 vendors using its modules, the largest being Fujitsu Siemens, in Europe, HP and Lenovo. However Zibrik said the company was shifting focus from this market to concentrate on the OEM market. "The laptop market is becoming overly competitive and hard to sustain a profitable business. We are starting to spend more time on our verticals."

Sierra is not a member of the initiative announced yesterday by the global GSM Assocation to promote embedded HSPA in laptops. Zibrik told iTWire that Sierra had been aware of the plan since its inception. "It is a meaningful effort to brand 3G to increase awareness [and] is a small step to increase the existing three perce 3G attach rate of laptop computers." he added that the co-operative had "set a lofty goal of increasing the 3G attach rate by a very significant amount."

However HSPA in laptops was described as being "only the first step in a wider strategy to deliver wireless Internet access and management to a whole range of previously unconnected devices - from cameras and MP3 players to refrigerators, cars and set-top boxes," exactly the market Sierra is focussing on.

Sierra Wireless' only identifed OEM customer in Australia is NetComm which uses its modules in the recently released Turbo 7 wireless router sold by Telstra for use on Next G. However the company has other customers which are not yet ready to announce products. Zibrik said the time from initial agreement to launch of products incorporating its embedded modules was typically six to nine months.

It embedded products are sold in Australia through a distributor, M2m Connectivity in Melbourne. However this year it opened an office in Melbourne, mainly to support Telstra as a customer of its external USB and ExpressCard modems, according ot Zibrik. It is headed by Malcolm Thom who formerly worked in wireless broadband with Telstra Mobile.