Cisco Systems sees a big market for WiMax, but not primarily in high-profile
deployments in the developed world such as Sprint Nextel's nationwide network,
planned for commercial launch in the U.S. next year.

Cisco's acquisition of Navini Networks, expected to close in January, will
make it a vendor of wireless radios to carriers for the first time, even though
it has been selling the infrastructure behind all kinds of radios for several
years. The prospect of getting in early on a market transition was one thing
that made WiMax attractive, according to Brett Galloway, vice president and
general manager of Cisco's wireless networking business unit.

But the main opportunity Cisco sees is in building networks in developing countries,
initially to bring broadband to stationary users, company executives said Wednesday
at the annual C-Scape analyst conference in San Jose, California. That's a long
way from the vision of mobility that Intel and other big backers of WiMax promoted
for several years. Even an Intel executive on a panel with the Cisco executives
played up WiMax as an alternative to DSL (digital subscriber line) or cable
broadband. That's likely to be the role of WiMax for the foreseeable future
in markets with poor or no wired infrastructure, said Sriram Viswanathan, general
manager of the WiMax Program Office at Intel Capital. But he's not giving up
on mobile WiMax there.

"We see that as almost an entry step for these markets to get onto the
mobility bandwagon," Viswanathan said.

The carriers in developing countries are insisting on gear based on IEEE 802.16e,
the standard for mobile WiMax, rather than on an earlier specification limited
to fixed services, said Roger Dorf, president and CEO of Navini. They want the
capability to eventually offer a mobile service, especially because many such
carriers have both wired and wireless divisions, he said. But right now, Cisco
sees WiMax giving many residents of poorer countries, who overwhelmingly still
use desktop PCs, their first broadband experience. Desktops will dominate those
markets for the next two years, in Dorf's view.

Cisco isn't dismissing WiMax for advanced countries, just identifying the most
attractive market to start with, Galloway said. However, the executives don't
see much potential in unlicensed WiMax, such as deployments across large enterprise
campuses. The unlicensed variety will remain a niche product, primarily for
point-to-point backhaul links, Galloway said.

Mobile WiMax is designed so it can be used without an external antenna or gateway
box, so a user should be able to take a notebook or other portable device anywhere
in the network's coverage area and connect. But some analysts say this "nomadic"
capability is a far cry from the true mobility that cellular technologies have
been designed to deliver from the beginning. WiMax will complement but not compete
with future high-speed versions of 3G systems, namely LTE (Long-Term Evolution),
the next step in the GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology
track, according to Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates.

Cisco isn't taking sides in the next-generation radio fight, said Larry Lang,
vice president and general manager of Cisco's Services and Mobility Business
Unit. Cisco will win in any case because it supplies the IP (Internet Protocol)
packet infrastructure that will link different access networks together, he
said.

The company does see an affinity between WiMax and Wi-Fi, where it is a dominant
player. Both are IP-based and standardized, and no one company has dominated
innovation in either technology, Galloway said. Simply the advent of a new type
of portable broadband experience is good news for the network giant.

"If we drive innovation on end devices and applications, and we drive
the penetration and ubiquity of networks ... we create enormous value for Cisco
... for the ecosystem ... and for our customers," Galloway said.

IDG News Service

• Email
• Print
• Share
  • Slashdot
  • Digg
  • Stumble
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine