Wireless broadband coverage claims fall short

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Reply-To: <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 02:22:07 -0800
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
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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