Australian WiMax disaster

[ebudae]

Garth Freeman, CEO of Australia's first WiMax operator, sat down at the recent International WiMax Conference in Bangkok and unleashed a tirade about the failings of the technology, leaving an otherwise pro-WiMax audience stunned. His company, Buzz Broadband, had deployed a WiMax network over a year ago, and Freeman left no doubt about what conclusions he had drawn. He claimed that 'its non-line of sight performance was "non-existent" beyond just 2 kilometres from the base station, indoor performance decayed at just 400m and that latency rates reached as high as 1000 milliseconds. Poor latency and jitter made it unacceptable for many Internet applications and specifically VoIP, which Buzz has employed as the main selling point to induce people to shed their use of incumbent services.'

http://www.commsday.com/node/228

I thought this might be an interesting read considering the eager anticipation of WiMax in by so many of SAs telecom providers.

 

[JBFRobisher]

Very interesting - thanks.

 

[Norm!]

This topic is been discussed under the WIMAX section also. But my two cents worth...............I don't know who or what messed up this company WIMAX because if you read the WIMAX forums here carefully you'll notice its a great service.

I haven't seen one thread complaining about Telkom WIMAX except where people like myself want more speed and obviously cheaper prices.

As i said before and will keep saying, the pings are low, the speed almost 95% of what I'm paying for and its consistent, no matter what time of the day or the weather condition I get 490.70kbps and I'm not in line of site

 

[lion_fish]

Wow. Not good.

And SA was planning on WiMax being the saviour of broadband...

So what now? is there a way to boost the signal emmensly to make it more stable more than 2km from the tower?

 

[semiautomatix]

“I’m against government micromanagement of the market. Government should start to provide a conducive investment environment.”

There's your problem. And we can sympathise!

 

[Roman4604]

This Freeman guy sounds like a bit of a twit who was bamboozled into believing the hype of WiMAX without understanding the general principals and capabilities of radio technology (not just WiMAX). Even someone with a basic clue would know the probability of a 3.5GHz signal penetrating brick & concrete at distance is minimal. Why do you think both Telkom's & MWEB's WiMAX installation include an externally mounted antenna.

Also his comparison to HS(D)PA show a lack of understanding. There is little difference between it's indoor penetration capabilities and WiMAX's given the same or similar frequency (16e=2.5GHz, UMTS=2.1GHz) as radio is radio. The practical difference is due to the economies of scale allowed by GSM voice revenues the cellular operators are able to deploy a very high density of base stations, resulting in short ave. distance between customer and base station. Build a 16e WiMAX network with the same density and it will have the same indoor capabilites (probably better due to its more advanced radio fuctionality/schemes e.g. S-OFDMA, QAM64 etc.).

 

[antowan]

Damnit ebudae, did you have to come and dent our hopes?!!?

 

[vodacom3g]

This Freeman guy sounds like a bit of a twit who was bamboozled into believing the hype of WiMAX without understanding the general principals and capabilities of radio technology (not just WiMAX). Even someone with a basic clue would know the probability of a 3.5GHz signal penetrating brick & concrete at distance is minimal. Why do you think both Telkom's & MWEB's WiMAX installation include an externally mounted antenna.

Also his comparison to HS(D)PA show a lack of understanding. There is little difference between it's indoor penetration capabilities and WiMAX's given the same or similar frequency (16e=2.5GHz, UMTS=2.1GHz) as radio is radio. The practical difference is due to the economies of scale allowed by GSM voice revenues the cellular operators are able to deploy a very high density of base stations, resulting in short ave. distance between customer and base station. Build a 16e WiMAX network with the same density and it will have the same indoor capabilites (probably better due to its more advanced radio fuctionality/schemes e.g. S-OFDMA, QAM64 etc.).

Exactly.

It seems everytime a new technology comes along, physics goes out the window...

Radio is radio and the principles (and limitations) are well understood. But not to those who read a few press releases, do a bit of Googling and suddenly are experts. I still see in the local press some believe they've struck gold with WiMAX delivering 70Mb/s at 70Km's.....while doing 120Km/h....

WiMAX had a difficult birth with all the in-fighting between vendors and this put a serious delay on the delivery of carrier-grade kit. It's still a problem and if the WiMAX community don't get its house in order soon, the arrival of LTE could be a considerable threat.

 

[Ricard]

and the fight continues... with many parts of the world installing the wimax competitor LTE

 

[Roman4604]

and the fight continues... with many parts of the world installing the wimax competitor LTE

LTE is still far from commercial ready. Most larger operators are still on the HS(D)PA roadmap between 1.8 - 7.2

 

[Ricard]

LTE is still far from commercial ready. Most larger operators are still on the HS(D)PA roadmap between 1.8 - 7.2

I know and have installed kit at 5 east european countries using LTE. they are all new networks that have it on trial.

 

[Roman4604]

I know and have installed kit at 5 east european countries using LTE. they are all new networks that have it on trial.

Aaw, come on you cant really call this LTE, outdoor prototype lab tests at best. The radio spec was only finalised 2 months ago and the backend architecture (SAE) looks like it will only be ratified near the end of the year.

PS what is being used as CPEs, and what size are they?

 

[arf9999]

This Freeman guy sounds like a bit of a twit who was bamboozled into believing the hype of WiMAX without understanding the general principals and capabilities of radio technology (not just WiMAX). Even someone with a basic clue would know the probability of a 3.5GHz signal penetrating brick & concrete at distance is minimal. Why do you think both Telkom's & MWEB's WiMAX installation include an externally mounted antenna.

Also his comparison to HS(D)PA show a lack of understanding. There is little difference between it's indoor penetration capabilities and WiMAX's given the same or similar frequency (16e=2.5GHz, UMTS=2.1GHz) as radio is radio. The practical difference is due to the economies of scale allowed by GSM voice revenues the cellular operators are able to deploy a very high density of base stations, resulting in short ave. distance between customer and base station. Build a 16e WiMAX network with the same density and it will have the same indoor capabilites (probably better due to its more advanced radio fuctionality/schemes e.g. S-OFDMA, QAM64 etc.).

@Roman: Please stop bringing reason and logic into these discussions!

edit:

HORSES FOR COURSES: Freeman says Buzz has now abandoned WiMAX in favour of a “horses for courses” policy. This includes use of the TD-CDMA standard at 1.9GHz—used by operators such as New Zealand’s Woosh Wireless..

TD-CDMA = Sentech MyWireless. Good luck with that.