[IP] Wireless broadband coverage claims fall short
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From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 02:22:07 -0800
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Wireless broadband coverage claims fall short
Wireless broadband coverage claims fall short
Feb 15, 2005
By: John C. Tanner
<http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?
id=147034>
February 15, 2005
Wireless broadband may be a potentially huge differentiator for 3G
cellcos, but trials in Singapore reveal that the cost and performance
of wireless broadband solutions don¹t always live up to the marketing
hype from vendors.
Patrick Scodeller, CTO of Singaporean cellco MobileOne, said wireless
broadband has the potential to give the cellco a competitive edge over
rivals SingTel and StarHub, which also have fixed-line broadband
services.
M1 has been evaluating three wireless broadband technologies none of
which are WiMAX, which it intends to evaluate later in the year and
so far has found Wi-Fi hotspot services too costly to deploy in terms
of backhaul, installation and labor costs.
Scodeller didn¹t name specific technologies or companies, but said that
M1 has mainly been in the claim-verification stage for other wireless
broadband technologies, and so far has found the claims to be at odds
with actual performance, particularly in terms of coverage.
³Singapore is a small market, about 600 square kilometers. It takes
about 1,200 base stations to provide full coverage for mobile. Well,
we¹ve had vendors come in and say they can provide the same coverage
with six or ten base stations, but as we trial them, the number seems
to go up,² he said.
³Physics is physics. If you want to deliver a usable service that
provides the kind of coverage our users expect which includes
elevators and underground car parks the number of wireless broadband
base stations it takes to do that has been creeping up closer to the
number of base stations we need to provide 3G.²
Scodeller added that M1 takes verification testing seriously in part
because Singaporean users have high expectations for service coverage
and quality, and partly because of its short-lived experience with
CDMA.
³Qualcomm is a great company and have done very well, but we discovered
when we deployed CDMA that the claims of their PR people about CDMA¹s
capabilities were a bit, shall we say, iffy,² he said.
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