Adam Bender

There’s enough room in wireless for WiMAX and LTE to coexist, said an official from WiMAX equipment maker Alvarion in an interview. “I think everyone loves conflict but the reality is it’s a huge world,” said Patrick Leary, assistant marketing vice president. A similar battle of words was fought between CDMA and GSM network technologies, he said, but both are still going strong. Even if WiMAX and LTE split the wireless market fifty-fifty, “there’s hundreds of billions on either side,” he said. WiMAX has advantages, he said: “WiMAX as a technology has this ability to solve distinct problems that distinct carriers may have.” Alvarion sells equipment to a “wide swath” of operator customers using WiMAX for different end goals, he said. AT&T is using WiMAX in Alaska because it’s the least difficult way to deploy a broadband network there, he said. Virginia startup DigitalBridge is using WiMAX to carve out a market niche serving under-served areas, he said. Digicel is a “pure cellular” voice carrier in the Caribbean seeking to increase competitiveness against incumbent rivals, he said. TDS, a CLEC from Madison, Wis., launched a WiMAX network in late January to escape adverse impact from wireline deregulation in the region, he said.

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel are aligning WiMAX network architecture and are close to a roaming agreement, Clearwire CEO Ben Wolff told analysts at an investor day in Portland, Ore. The companies called off a partnership last November (CD Nov 13 p6), but talks continued, progressing greatly the past 60 days, Wolff said. Sprint and Clearwire networks will share features, functionality and performance expectations, smoothing the way for roaming, Wolff said. Sprint and Clearwire are jointly testing WiMAX device interoperability and sharing data collected from network trials, he said. The cooperation means the companies are “moving the ball faster than either of us would do on our own,” Wolff said.

Sprint said Wednesday that it’s committed to the Nextel push-to-talk network, but some analysts have doubts. “Nextel Direct Connect provides a differentiated experience for our customers,” CEO Dan Hesse said. “The Nextel National Network (iDEN) is key to delivering Nextel Direct Connect. Sprint has invested significantly during the past two years and the network is performing at best-ever levels. Customers can expect to see continued investment and the introduction of new handsets to utilize the network’s unique capabilities.”

NTT America demonstrated an IPv6-based Earthquake Early Warning System at Wednesday’s State of the Net Conference. The system, built for Japan, alerts people about tremors 10- 20 seconds before they strike. Twenty seconds doesn’t sound like much but studies show it makes a difference, said NTTA Vice President Kazuhiro Gomi in an interview. “If you are in the kitchen, you can shut down all the fires, and if you're in a dangerous zone you can quickly get away from that place and hide yourself from anything hazardous.” The technology works because data moves over fiber faster than an earthquake’s waves course through the ground, he said. In Japan, NTT detects quakes with Japan Meteorological Agency sensors and then sends IPv6 devices messages detailing the scale and timing of a tremor. The alert system can be used for disasters other than earthquakes, provided there are sensors to detect them, said Chris Davis, NTTA product marketing director. Such a wide scale alert system wouldn’t be practical in IPv4, Gomi said. IPv4 has multicast capabilities, but they were added on later and most ISPs haven’t turned them on, he said. “Even though you [can] send out the multicast packets on IP version 4, the chances are the packets are dropped all over the place.” Another problem is the network address translator (NAT) IPv4 requires to sustain the growing number of Internet capable devices, he said. “NAT is a good solution as long as you're just doing e-mailing or Web surfing,” he said, but it doesn’t let a central server reach out directly to an end point device, he said. NTTA is present at State of the Net to show IPv6 to government agencies that must implement the network protocol to satisfy a 2005 mandate requiring government agencies to implement the next-generation network protocol by June. NTT America sells a dual-stack IPv6 network that supports IPv4, Davis said. Offering backward compatibility is important, he said: “In the short term, I don’t think we see the U.S. government switching their networks to IP version 6 and all the sudden running up a whole different protocol,” Davis said. “There will be revenue from IPv6 transit,” but the government will keep legacy systems and applications that need the old version, he said.

A bill shrinking the executive branch’s state secrets privilege could remove a major obstacle to lawsuits against telcos alleged to play a role in the National Security Agency’s illegal surveillance program, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Tuesday at a House Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee hearing. The law should be changed to prevent the executive branch from withholding information “for its own political advantage, or to avoid accountability,” said EFF attorney Kevin Bankston. Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said he plans to introduce a bill to do that.

Verizon had strong Q4 revenue growth despite falling short of AT&T’s record-setting wireless net adds (CD Jan 26 p10). The Bell boosted total Q4 operating revenue 5.5 percent year-over-year to $23.8 billion. Total 2007 revenue was $93.5 billion, $5.3 billion more than 2006’s. The carrier isn’t seeing ill effects from the economy, officials said Monday in a conference call.

Sprint filed four infringement lawsuits involving Voice over Packet patents Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Kansas. Sprint seeks damages and injunctions against NuVox, Broadvox, Paetec and Big River Telephone. Each company has infringed “at least” six Sprint VOP patents, the carrier said. “Sprint has invested a great deal in the technology covered by its VOP portfolio,” said Harley Ball, vice president of intellectual property for Sprint. “We will take all necessary steps to protect what is ours and we will continue to police the marketplace to stop others from misappropriating our technology.” Paetec is reviewing the complaint, a spokeswoman said. So is Big River, which plans a statement next week, a spokesman said. NuVox and Broadvox didn’t immediately return calls seeking comment.

A slowing economy didn’t hurt AT&T’s Q4 wireless results. AT&T added 2.7 million subscribers in the quarter, a U.S. wireless industry record contrasting starkly with Sprint Nextel’s 638,000 post-paid customer loss in the period (CD Jan 22 p5). “We had an excellent fourth quarter, which affirms our outlook for 2008,” said Rick Lindner, chief financial officer.

Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse shuffled senior management, replacing three officers Thursday. Exiting Jan. 25 are Paul Saleh, chief financial officer; Tim Kelly, chief marketing officer; and Mark Angelino, sales & distribution president, Sprint said. William Arendt, controller, becomes acting CFO; John Garcia, product development and management senior vice president, becomes acting CMO; and Paget Alves, regional president for sales and distribution, becomes acting president for the division. “Permanent leaders will be named in conjunction with a review of overall strategy and an effort to streamline operations,” Hesse said. “I have no predetermined timeframe in filling these positions but plan to act as quickly as possible as I consider both internal and external candidates.” The moves are simply about getting “new blood” into a struggling company, said Moody’s analyst Dennis Saputo in an interview. All were capable, but Sprint likely determined the three officials’ operations weren’t meeting expectations, he said. After ex-Nextel officials Saleh and Angelino’s exit, the balance of merged senior management now tilts in Sprint’s direction, he said. Hesse likely is replacing Saleh and Kelly because of their close ties to ex-CEO Gary Forsee, said Pali Research analyst Walter Piecyk in an interview. Kelly in particular did a “poor job,” but Forsee was protecting his position, he said. Angelino’s exit wasn’t necessary, but Hesse should have forced out officials in charge of handsets and customer care, he said. The shakeup is a “step in the right direction,” but Sprint also needs to kick out some board members who are due for re-election this spring, Piecyk said, saying ex-Hallmark CEO Irvine Hockaday should be top of the list. Saputo disagreed with the call, saying the board has a “well developed” understanding of the company.

The satellite industry is “as stable as I have ever seen it in 20 years,” Sea Launch President Rob Peckham told a Washington Space Business Roundtable lunch Thursday. There’s potential for growth but “at minimum, there’s stability,” he said. That doesn’t mean doing business is easy, he said: “I don’t think there’s too many other businesses out there that are one step away from catastrophe as this industry is.” Sea Launch saw disaster first hand when one of its rockets blew up at launch last January (CD Feb 1/07 p14). Sea Launch’s successful launch last week showed it overcame “two significant hurdles": regaining the company’s “launch tempo” and “understanding what the ocean is capable of.” That doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, he said. He’s satisfied with investigations conducted and improvements made, he said, but “anyone who says ‘never’ will be proven wrong.” This year, Sea Launch plans five more sea launches and three land launches, he said. It plans to launch another nine rockets in 2009 and ten in 2010. Sea Launch is also talking to NASA about providing a resupply service for the International Space Station, Peckham said. “As my predecessor used to say, why would NASA use their brightest minds to get toilet paper and run it up to the station?” Peckham isn’t concerned about rivals, he said. New launch systems mean innovation is occurring in the industry, he said. Meanwhile, there’s no point worrying about China’s reentry and India’s entry into the market because both are government-funded programs. “They're going to be in business whether there’s commercial business or not.”