EFFECTIVE STANDARDS CALLED KEY TO WIRELESS BROADBAND
SAN JOSE -- Broadband wireless needs strong industry hand to focus on major business opportunities and persuade rival vendors to cooperate in generating mutually advantageous technical standards, Harris Corp. executive told Wireless Communications Assn. conference here Wed. “You need effective industry leadership,” said Kwame Boakye, Harris technology vp and FCC Technical Advisory Committee member. He cited the ADSL and ATM forums as positive role models for “transform[ing] technology to business.”
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Boakye spoke on panel charged with unraveling relationship between technical standards and business models -- key to broadband-wireless sector trying to sort out would- be standards and make gains against cable, DSL, satellite. Some participants plugged favorite standards: IPWireless engineering Exec. Vp William Jones stumped for Universal Mobile Telecom Service (UMTS), while Nokia Networks broadband wireless program mgr. Mika Skarp talked up IEEE 802.16. Most discussion centered on what Proxim Chief Technology Officer Kevin Negus called “chicken-and-egg” problem of creating standards and stimulating and meeting demand.
Standards are essential to promoting entry by multiple suppliers, enabling interoperability, price reductions from competition, diversification of suppliers for service providers, smooth migration to new technology generations and fast international scaling generally, speakers said. They represented industry recognition of need to cooperate in maximizing market, Boakye said. Triumph of cellular in Europe and global prominence of Ericsson and Nokia testify to standard’s power, Jones said. Successful broadband-wireless standard, Skarp said, must be easy to implement, future- proof, stable, cover all frequencies, provide interoperability.
Unfortunately, however, standards committee is “a very sub-optimal environment,” Negus said. Participants come with varying technical perspectives and conflicting business agendas. Some members may not desire successful standard at all, and compromise is inevitable, he said. Participants agreed that standards must: (1) Focus on substantial, well- defined business opportunities. (2) Develop fast enough to allow product development and distribution while the demand window remains open. (3) Be robust enough to promote performance that can compete effectively with rival technologies.
Crowded graveyard proves technology standards won’t substitute for business cases. “I've seen many so-called standards come and go,” said Alvarion Asst. Vp-Business Development Mohammad Shakouri. Broadband-wireless standard must enable “high-capacity, large cells,” rather than uneconomic microcells to support “cash-flow-positive, pay-as- you-go kind of approach,” SOMA Networks CEO Yatish Pathak said. He said standard also must support high-quality voice service and be plug-and-play. Shakouri said 802.16 allowed too many options to promote interoperability and Boakye said it didn’t address practical issues such as billing and OSS. UMTS doesn’t qualify as standard for most stationary applications because it doesn’t provide performance comparable with cable and DSL, Pathak said. In separate presentation, IPWireless CTO Roger Quayle disputed that. He promoted UMTS as only technology usable throughout Asia, Europe and N. America and only one designed for fixed and portable as well as mobile uses.
Pathak said need for standards and difficulty of establishing good formal ones pointed to de facto standards such as Ethernet, Linux and PC architecture as answer. “It’s easy to standardize,” he said, “once you see who the winner is in the market.”