Gov't's WiMAX choice raises many questions

Stuart Corner
Monday, 18 June 2007 16:58

Opinion and Analysis

I also recently interviewed Mikael Halen, director government and industry relations with Ericsson, a company which has abandoned all work on WiMAX infrastructure in favour of HSDPA and its successor.

He made the point that "Going forward we believe there will be more mobile broadband than fixed broadband...We are now at 3.6Mbps [with HSDPA]....Next year we will see the first 28Mbps networks and 40Mbps at the end of next year."

To upgrade a 3G cellular network, he said required: "No more base stations: just a software upgrade and more processing power in the base stations," and he added: "Just around the corner 2009 we will have LTE this will take us above 100Mbps."

Today data on cellular networks is expensive, but this could be more a commercial decision than a cost driven decision, and Halen suggests the latter, citing a European 3G operator that started offering unlimited mobile broadband at 3.6Mbps for 20 euro per month. In the first 10 weeks it traffic increased four fold. And he said: "Half a year ago they positioned HSDPA as a complement to fixed broadband. Now they are going after the fixed broadband services which cost to 30-40 Euro per month. You save 20 and get mobility."

I certainly don't have all the answers. This is clearly a very complex question, but it seems to one to which the Government has given scant consideration. As with FTTN, it is picking a technology and bragging about it. Instead, it should have specified service parameters, coverage areas and rollout schedules and evaluated all offers against these parameters in a technology-neutral manner and in a full transparent manner.

Like FTTN, this smells like another politically expedient quick fix which we may all come to regret.