WCA Conference Notebook
Broadband wireless in the 2.5 GHz band would be held back by the FCC’s limiting to 15 years license terms for Broadband Radio Service and Educational Broadband Service, service providers indicated to a Wireless Communications Assn. conference in San Jose last week. The restriction would be bad news for Sprint Nextel, which plans “a sizable commitment” in the band and would face competitors like Verizon without similar constraints in their bands, said Paul McCarthy, Sprint’s licensee relations dir. Other matters that will affect how quickly the 2.5 GHz band is used effectively are creation of transition rules to remove impediments, auctioning whitespace, and “substantial service” requirements, he said. The pace of advance will be determined especially by how quickly “speculators” among license holders are removed from the spectrum, McCarthy said. But “you can deploy now, and we're going to do that,” he said: “Now is the time to compete with EVDO.” Other regulatory matters cited as affecting how quickly broadband wireless flourishes are whether Commercial Mobile Radio Service is classed as provision of pure information service; conditions of VoIP provision; CALEA, E-911 and universal service fund requirements; terms of access to the public switched phone network; and network neutrality. Clearwire supports net neutrality and believe it applies here, but “there’s a traffic management issue that allows you to guarantee your customers quality of service,” said Gerard Salemme, Clearwire exec. vp-strategy, policy & external affairs. It’s “not as simple as saying we're in favor of letting other people use our network,” he said. A Dec. agreement for Sprint to swap smaller-market 2.5 GHz licenses for large-market licenses from Clearwire foreshadow more such deals, executives of the companies said. “We both have a common interest in maximizing the value of that spectrum and its efficiency,” Salemme said. They also agreed mobility is central to the success of services in the band. Clearwire will start deploying the capability “in the very near term,” Salemme said. “The very, very near term.” -- LT
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EarthLink will market metropolitan Wi-Fi “like crazy the next couple of years,” senior executive Donald Berryman told the conference. Of the company’s 5.3 million subscribers, 3.5 million buy dial-up Internet, and there’s no future in that, he said: “Our base of customers are going away.” Since mid-2003, the company has invested in investigating more advanced wireless technologies with Digital Path and MetroFi, and broadband over powerline, but “we didn’t find a solution that worked for us,” said Berryman, EarthLink Municipal Networks pres. and exec. vp of the parent company: Meanwhile, “Wi-Fi exists. It works.” The company is focusing on the top 25-30 U.S. markets, he said. The first paid customers should be on the Philadelphia municipal network EarthLink’s building in June or July, and the system should be finished about year-end, Berryman said. And the company is “working with” at least 10 other cities, he said. EarthLink announced a deal to work only with Motorola and Tropos Networks in at least its next 5 markets. The company still is working out bugs involving congestion and interference, Berryman conceded: “We'll be able to work through those solutions.” WiMAX “absolutely” will play a role in the company’s strategy, he said. The technology will be important for persuading business customers to replace T-1 and other high-speed connections and in extending wireless data access to suburbs and other places, Berryman said.
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Billing for a profusion of new broadband wireless services will be so complex that flat-rate offers will prevail at first “because that’s an easy way to do it,” Bechtel CTO J.S. MacLeod said at the conference. For its Helio venture with SK Telecom, EarthLink brought 90 SK engineers to L.A. to recreate the carrier’s billing system in S. Korea, said EarthLink Exec. Vp Donald Berryman: “There have to be completely new platforms to enable this new situation.” ArrayComm Exec. Chmn. Martin Cooper said: “The billing problem is going to be new and different. You can’t charge people by the minute as we have been doing for 30 years in cellular.” The industry needs “creative new billing systems,” he said. Photo uploads and downloads might be charged by the item, like song downloads, Cooper said.