What's Going On for WiMax?

What's Going On for WiMax?

I have been asked the same question in the last 2 weeks by over 200 investors, attorneys, analysts and plicy-makers because they trust my views are very different from the public publication or public release.

Yes, I am an academic people plus was a low level technical labor as Chief wireless architect of Infineon Technologies. I started broadband wireless access (BWA) technology since 1992 and owned couple of Wireless mobile ATM patents, and later started IEEE802.16 together with Roger, Jim, Brian, etc in march 1999.

Before we discuss on any issues of Wimax, let's sit down and calm down for a while - forget any political, marketing, and media hypos, and think it over carefully as a student, rather than as a businessman or salesman.

WiMax is not a new baby! WiMax is already at least 15 years'old teenage. We all know Teenage is a very critical time period in life, and we need enough education to help set his/her long-term development strategy.

WiMax is just a new name for IEEE802.16 standard, one of the standards for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies. In history, BWA included Wireless ATM (autonomous transfer mode), wireless mobile ATM, HyperAccess, LMDS, MMDS - some are IEEE, and some are non-IEEE standards.

IEEE802.16 came from an idea of Cable Modern (DOCSIS based) in later 1998, and 802.16.1 on LMDS and 802.16.3 on MMDS in early 1999 when we started the 802.16 standardization activities in Boulder, CO, the virgin home of WiMax. Later 802.16.1/3 changed to 802.16.a...

Before we discuss about the WiMax, we need to analyze why the previous Wireless Mobile ATM and LMDS/MMDS were totally dead. The first issue I believe is the COST and PRICE. Do you really can provide a low cost (I should not say cheap) solution to the users, and how cheap the service is?

Some people focus on the under-developed emerging markets such as China rural areas or India rural areas where the telephone line is expensive to install. But people still use the American logics to think about the cost in China. In US, the telephone line installation is expensive because the labor and construction are expensive. In US, if you want to install a 5-miles phone line to the rural area house, it may cost $1000 per line. But in China rural area such as Gansu, Jiangxi, Xi'an, etc, we only cost $20 per line to install a 5-miles phone line to the rural home because the labor and construction is extremely cheap, and we do not need a permission from the household to install a phone line in the property or set up an antenna on top of the building (in rural areas). If these areas can not afford to pay $20 per line to have phone line, do you think they can aford to buy the WiMax equipment?

But we do have huge markets for WiMax in China - the Governement markets and Community markets. China gov't controls almost 85% of the ICT industries and there are many opportunities for WiMax systems such as Traffic department, transportation, customs, business parks, oil plants, banks, ATM stations, schools, city halls, etc whci are all gov't markets. The issue is: How much cheap you can provide for WiMAX solution? As long as the cost is low, people will love it!

Personally, I believe Intel is very smart and will win in this race. Do you think Intel is a WiMax company? If you think so, you are stupid!

Intel is a IC company with endless innovations and inventions in key technology of IC. Intel will leap ahead, but not heading to WiMax! Intel is absolutely targetting open architecture, and have WiMax as a testing example!

Remebered the PABX race in early 90s, only one company made huge money - that was Mitel shipping the TDM swicth chip 24/7 to every corners of the world.

WIMAX is a very good technology, especially in fixed and nomadic WiMAX solutions. But for seamless Mobile WiMax, we still have lots of technical issues to be solved, and are very difficult to be solved. I always believe there is NO single wireless standard that can do everything both broadband and seamless mobile. We need different wireless standards to complement each other for the converged solutions.

For general mobile Wimax, the term "mobile" is very confusing and misleading. What do you mean by "mobile"? There are several definitions of "mobile":1. Portable, such as mobile computing.2. Moveable, such as mobile house.3. Free mobile (or called seamless mobile), such as mobile phone.

So in the current IEEE802.16e, the mobile WiMax is still limited to "portable" or very limited mobile.

Why I said seamless (free) mobile WImax is very difficult or even impossible? When the frequency goes high, the cell size gets very small, and the transmission is limited to line-of-sight. The frequent handovers between various base-stations become very difficult especially when the network capacity increases. There is no well accepted solution yet to support the free mobile handover control protocols in broadband wireless IP networks. The traditional GSM/TDMA and CDMA protocols do not support such high-frequent and dense handovers in such small cells with non-circuit-switch (NCS) connections.

But on the other side, mobile may just become one feature for the WiMax, just like camera feature in a mobile phone - it is available whenever you want to use it, but mostly you never use it unless it is too cheap or free cost.

I fully understand that people want to distinguish mobile WiMax with previous MMDS, etc, otherwise it may repeat the same lessions of MMDS except the cost and performance improve a lot.

Last, any new mobile standard needs a lucky place (Fengshui in Chinese) and lucky time to save it at the begining. GSM was saved by God (God Saved Mobile), CDMA was saved by Korea, and who is going to save mobile WiMax?

Anyway, WiMax is a very good technology, I believe.

To be continued .... as we are landing to the airport.

by Willie W. Lu
in Flight

How much can Apple low down the iPhone price

How much can Apple low down the iPhone price?

As I said in July in the Silicon Valley's Churchill Club, and also repeated in my Blog on Aug. 6th, Steve Jobs has no other choice but to cut its iPhone price because it is TOO expensive, and its competitors offered two low price for similar phone. In China and Taiwan, several iPhone-like mobile phone only costs $150 or even $100, though not so shinny, but almost all functions work very well.

I visited an iPhone "development" company in Shanghai, and was told that the 8G iPhone BOM cost is only $137.62 which is surprisingly low. I am not sure whether that is a Chinese version iPhone or US model iPhone, but the fact is, it is an iPhone and works exactly same as the one sold in AT&T, plus everything is unlocked.

iPhone is a symbol of fashion and power, and everything (in the industry) is talking about this angel across the global. The 8G iPhone was $599, but now is $399. Do you think it is a reasonable price?

If the BOM cost is $137.62, the total phone cost should be less than $160. hence, the $399 may still carry 150% profit margin. I am a mobile phone architect for over decade, the GSM phone BOM cost can be low to $13, and the CDMA phone can be at $15 in China. The Chinese designed "iPod" (sold in Shenzhen and Beijing) BOM can be low at $15 as well. So it is really subject to what kind of "iPhone" you are talking about.

After the iPhone hardware and software architectures are uncovered, the phone is very normal except the display components and the application processing modules are quite aggressive. But on the wireless phone side, the BOM is very cheap. Some Taiwanese companies are redesigning the expensive components of the iPhone in order to further low down the iPhone cost to less than $80 in BOM, and less than $100 in total.

When the iPhone goes international, and based on Jobs's strategy, Apple will sell the iPhone to Asia in 2008, how to deal with the low-priced local "iPhone" in many Asian countries becomes the very tough challenge for Apple. As you all know that, IPR enforcement is extremely difficult in some countries, how can you protect your phone from being copied, reverse-engineered, assembled? There are hundreds of Ph.Ds working on iPhone right now, and these people are very smart - believe me!

Personally, I expect Jobs will continue to low down the iPhone price, probably in 4~6 months time frame.

iPhone on the way to Open Wireless Architecture (OWA)

iPhone on the way to Open Wireless Architecture (OWA)

When the New York teenage unlcoked the iPhone, it sent the message to the world: iPhone is one the way to liberate itself! Basically, Apple never cares to lock or unlock the phone, as it makes profits by selling the phone, not selling the services. Furthermore, Steve Jobs hopes it is fully unlocked so that anyone can easily use it anywhere and anytime, same experience as iPod.

Apple computer is in Cupertino, the heart of Silicon Valley and also my hometown, where WiFi is a free service across the city of Cupertino, and the speed is quite high. There is hugh demand to have iPhone working in WiFi networks which is totally unlocked and free service. From Cupertino to Palo Alto, most Furtune 500 IT executives and big guys are living there, and they push Steve Jobs to consider unlocked iPhones for WiFi and other broadband wireless access networks.

Furthermore, Cisco, Google and Intel also pushing hard the upcoming mobile phone business supporting unlocked and multiple wireless standards to offer the truly service-oriented information delivery platform.

Therefore, the game is pretty clear for Apple: iPhone needs to go open wireless architecture (OWA) and it is the best time to do so:

1. iPhone was lunched on AT&T GSM networks with iPhone locked,
2. iPhone starts to operate in WiFi networks and can be unlocked as requested by users,
3. iPhone will be operative in 3G networks and can be unlocked as requested by users,
4. iPhone will be operative in WiMax networks and can be unlocked as requested by users,
5. iPhone will support OWA Phase I with 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 air interfaces in the same iPhone,
6. iPhone will support OWA Phase II with open air interface standards in the SIM Card or AI (Air-Interfaces) Card.

Once iPhone is going for OWA openness, it is ready for VoIP, mobile searching and full landscape of mobile applications and services. In long term, Apple, Cisco, Google, Oracle and Intel, etc will all work together to create the truly service-oriented 4G (fourth generation) mobile communications.

Keep your eyes open for iPhone as it goes for open wireless architecture in long run!

[CTIA Live] Open up, here comes the 4GMF

Open up, here comes the 4GMF by Brian Dolan, Fiercewireless
http://www.fiercewireless.com/ctialive/story/open-here-comes-4gmf/2007-08-31-0

Professor Willie Lu’s 4G Mobile Forum (4GMF) has big plans for the future of U.S. mobile communications. The 4GMF, of which Lu is the founder and chairman, wants to “liberate the whole wireless industry” so that users can personalize their future mobile phones and enable mobile users to navigate the platform as deftly as a mouse-equipped PC user.

“Even though we call the forum the ‘4GMF,’ it doesn’t mean we have a very formal definition of what ‘4G’ is,” Lu says. “I’m a technical person and technical people don’t care about these terms. ‘4G’ or ‘3G’--these are just marketing terms, they are not technologies’ names. We just called it ‘4GMF’ because most people have no idea what something like open wireless architecture is.”

Lu says that the Forum’s goals are threefold. First, the Forum aims to bring “open access” to the U.S. mobile communications market by doing away with locked SIM cards. Second, the Forum wants to make the mobile phone’s interface as simple and easy as possible for users to navigate. Third, the Forum aims to promote an open wireless architecture for 4G networks.

The Forum’s U.S. launch kicks off at the CTIA Wireless I.T. and Entertainment show this October.

“This is our first time in the U.S. so we are not going to launch a conference by ourselves,” Professor Lu says. “We are working with CTIA to see what happens. CTIA was very interested in our proposal so if this goes well this time we should be a part of CTIA shows in the future,” he adds. “We have a very strong, very strong speaker team this time so this is going to be a very, very important event at the show.”

Julius Knapp, the FCC’s chief of engineering and technology, will keynote the three-day event at the CTIA IT Show in San Francisco. Executives from Intel, Oracle, Texas Instruments, Ericsson, Qualcomm and Yahoo will also be participating.

Lu explained that the 4GMF’s vision for 4G technology is very similar to that of the ITU, which is set to launch its 4G program this fall followed by an official standard next year. “ITU’s vision for 4G is very clear: convergence,” Lu says. “It will make use of multiple technologies because there is no single wireless technology that can do everything we need 4G networks to do.”

Lu says he expects mostly wireless engineers, investors and policy makers will attend the 4GMF show. The industry is hungry for more information on the regulatory environment surrounding the 700 MHz auction with its open access provisions. While the debate surrounding the 700 MHz auction certainly ingrained the term “open access” into the telecommunications sector’s collective psyche, Lu says that it was just the beginning of the opening of the U.S. market.