George Gilder et al on the subject of WiMAX vs. 3G
[FAC: Maybe I should have titled this post "Friends of George, et al .." Anyway, George, I believe it's time for you to make up your mind, or at least become more consistent in the views you put forth. If there are benefits to be found in disruptive technologies that employ cheap, reusable technologies at the edge, especially those that are open, wide and weak, then why promote the more expensive technology that is narrow, proprietary and strong? For starters, I believe that open networking proponents see an opportunity for the many of forms of WiFi (802.11), not WiMAX (802.16)exclusively, to take some share of the cellular and pcs markets, and I believe that at some point they will have been proved to be correct. So. some of the argument presented isn't a dead-on hit to where the IEEE pros were going. This topic always makes for good discussion, similar to the QoS-best effort one, which you seem also to be confused about. I say this because, while you are openly hostile to the efforts of Cisco and others to introduce QoS standards in their routers and switches, at the same time you highlight the superior quality of Verizon's EV-DO based on CDMA technology from QCOM, and the capabilities of the semis on your ascendant technologies list that can perform far more than QoS was ever intended to do, and they do it at virtually every layer of the networking stack. I can offer more examples fo what appears to be double-talk, at times, but I think I've made my case. The passage below is from the Gilder Friday Letter, which is delivered free each week via email. See: gilder.com to subscribe.]
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The Week / Why Max? A Wireless Primer and Discussion on Wireless Reality
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Excerpted from a white paper by Qualcomm Senior VP, Jeff Belk:
They say history repeats itself. Whoever they happen to be, when it comes to wireless technology evolution, they are right too often. Three years ago, we had to deal with a broad swath of the technology world telling us that Wi-Fi is going to crush 3G Wireless and dominate the future of Internet connectivity. Not so fast, we said, and I personally spent the greater part of 18 months telling folks that Wi-Fi is greatIve got it at home and QUALCOMM has hundreds of access points across its campusesbut not so fast with the Wi-Fi will crush 3G thing. Wi-Fi will work with, complement, augmentall that stuff makes sensebut replace? That was silly.
Fast forward. Were now in fall 2005. Theres this thing called WiMAX out there. For a bunch of folks in the technology community, its been a great opportunity to recycle some of their opinions and sometimes writings on Wi-Fi by just doing a search and replace, removing the Wi-Fi and replacing with WiMAX. Just like with Wi-Fi a few years ago, for some unfathomable reason, audiences usually critical of overhyping are remaining silent, and are continuing to give the WiMAX folks a free pass.
The problem with this approach is the same problem as with the Wi-Fi hubbub of a few years ago. Every part of a story that sounds great in sound bite form gets more complex when you examine the details. And the truth is often in the details.
The real world is not that easy, and the answers are not simplistic. Wish it was, but its not. And what really makes me nuts is that the primary proponents of WiMAX keep on purporting claims on the technology that are unsupportable. Right now, go to Google. Put in the search term WiMAX 75Mbps 30 Miles or WiMAX 75Mbps 50 Kilometers. Or WiMAX Mobile 2005. You will get thousands of hits, with new citations daily, and they will mostly be wrong.
Like the Wi-Fi hype of a few years ago, one of the major issues is that many of the folks reading/writing/analyzing this stuff are looking at these issues from an IT perspective. These folks have a long history, expertise and comfort level with things connected to a PC. That side of the tech industry is being guided by a vendor set who produce products connected to a PC. But there are these nasty things called radios that dont play well in this environment. Long ago at QUALCOMM, as a non-engineer I came to the realization that radio is akin to voodoo, and the engineers that can tame a wireless technology and work with a value chain to make a wireless standard operate in the real world should be considered the high priests of the technology world. Every time you push the green button on your cell phone, you are tapping into what is arguably the largest and most complex network on the planet.
So lets dissect some of the things about WiMAX that are just off base. Part of this will be Wireless for the Non-Technical, but as I just said, Im a non-engineer, so I can do this. And if you dont like it, guess what, you dont need to read it. And like with my other writings, I welcome a challenge, but you better have your facts straight. Hyperbole need not apply.
Read Belks Complete Paper:
qualcomm.com
Related Reading:
Jeff Belk: Adventures in the Public Hotspot Wi-Fi World
qualcomm.com
Bret Swanson: Listen To the Technology
disco-tech.org
Andy Seybold: The Wi-Fi City by the Bay
outlook4mobility.com
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FAC |
