The Curious Case of the Missing WiMAX
From “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” by Arthur Conan Doyle
Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night time”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
The fictional Sherlock Holmes solved the crime in “Silver Blaze” by deducing it was the owner of the house who was the criminal. How did he know? Because the dog did not bark. The only person who could have committed the crime without arousing the dog was someone the dog knew as a friend, the dog’s owner.
Now let us apply this Sherlockian logic to the “Curious Case of the Missing WiMAX”. Advocates of mobile WiMAX have been very vocal and active around the world among regulators and others. They claim to have a superior, “shovel ready” technology at their disposal that will be of great benefit to broadband mobile users and broadband growth overall in the territories for which these regulators are responsible, if only spectrum, especially in the very attractive 2.6GHz band, is attributed promptly within which mobile WiMAX networks can be deployed with a “time-to-market” advantage over LTE.
So a very natural question arises as to why in two countries where this spectrum has already been awarded, namely Norway in November, 2007 and Sweden in May, 2008, the WIMAX dog has not yet barked. As of end-August, 2009, well over one year after the 2.6GHz band auction in Sweden, and almost two years after the auction in Norway no deployment plans for mobile WiMAX networks in these two countries have been publicly announced by the two major winners of the unpaired spectrum, namely Intel Capital in Sweden and Craig Wireless in Norway. Moreover and meanwhile, TeliaSonera and a joint venture of Telenor and Tele2 have made public aggressive plans to deploy the “time-to-market” disadvantaged (according to the proponents of WiMAX) LTE in the paired spectrum which they won in these auctions. They have selected LTE vendors and launched LTE field trials.
One winner of unpaired 2.6GHz spectrum in some regions in Norway (licenses were awarded on a regional basis in this country whereas the Swedish licenses are national) – the utility Hafslund – did announce a contract in early June, 2009 with Alvarion for deployment of mobile WiMAX networks in these frequencies.
It is unclear why no plans or schedules for the deployment of mobile WIMAX networks in unpaired spectrum in the 2.6GHz band in Sweden and Norway have been forthcoming respectively from Intel Capital, which said it would be looking for partners, or Craig Wireless, which at the end of November, 2008 stated that it had no plans for near term operations in Norway.
Possible reasons might be:
- Lack of financing;
- Unattractive or unviable business models;
- or Intent to trade the spectrum later at a profit.
In Norway there are no build-out or coverage requirements attached to the spectrum license, which is valid and tradable until 2022. In Sweden there are also no rollout or coverage obligations on the winners of the 2.6GHz band spectrum.
At the very least regulators and other authorities responsible for spectrum management and attributions should be asking themselves whether:
- Spectrum won by operators or organizations that state they plan to deploy mobile WiMAX networks will in practice be exploited, or will be left to lie fallow and unused for an undetermined length of time for reasons that are not apparent before they submit their bids, whereas in contrast
- Spectrum attributed in configurations well suited to the deployment of LTE will be exploited by successful bidders in a timely manner that is responsive to growing customer demands to offer new broadband wireless services, and thereby support the goal of expanding and improving broadband access coverage within a national territory.
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