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3G … we hardly knew ya.
Just when the third generation of wireless services was getting its sea legs, a new gaggle of technologies came barging into the wireless party.
Whether it's Flash-OFDM, UMTS TDD, WiMAX or some other impressive-sounding acronym or buzzword, experts promise that such "4G" wonders will finally bring broadband mobility to the general public.
"There are a lot of exciting possibilities out there," said Max Weise, a principal at Adventis, a global consulting firm. "You could have your personal media repository that you use at home and on the road. Or handheld devices could control things at home, such as your TiVo."
The public has heard it all before, but indications are that the next couple of years will bring significant innovation as new software-based "system-on-a-chip" architectures combine with more efficient 4G networks now in the works.
"It's the availability of massive processing power," said John Muleta, co-chairman of Washington, D.C.-based law firm Venable LLP's Communications Practice and a former chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Wireless Bureau. "That's what's opening the new frontier. You will now have the wireless internet, not just the internet on wireless."
Indeed, at least when it comes to mobile phones, consumers have been disappointed with the speed, stability and general clunkiness of "the internet on wireless" for years. And while limited applications such as e-mail have worked well, broader internet surfing has been less than stellar.
Meanwhile, broadband-thirsty wireless users have turned to Wi-Fi "hot spots" and 3G data services such as Verizon Wireless' "Broadband Access" and Sprint/Nextel's "Wireless High-Speed Data" products, which have enabled wireless broadband primarily on laptops.
But both solutions have drawbacks: Wi-Fi access is limited to specific hot spots and, even then, prone to interference and scalability limits. And broadband-access products by Verizon Wireless and Sprint/Nextel -- while offering wider geographic coverage -- are expensive at about $60 per month.
Mobile broadband, as opposed to fixed wireless technology, has so far involved cramming packet-based data services into networks originally intended for circuit-switched voice calls.
"The problem with 3G is that it's still a voice-oriented service," said Paul Sergeant, marketing director for Motorola's Moto Wi4 unit. "What's leftover goes to data."
New 4G technologies, however, aim to create fully packet-switched networks optimized for data -- whether the digital bits represent voice, data or multimedia content. It's unclear which technologies will win out. But because Wi-Fi has been so successful in such a short period of time, many are looking to its juiced-up cousin -- known as WiMAX -- to be the next big thing.
WiMAX, which allows for higher data rates, more scalability, broader (potentially citywide) coverage and lower latency than Wi-Fi, has the backing of some big players such as Intel. Some vendors are also anxious to exploit WiMAX's flexible architecture. "Do you like gaming?" said Dave Sumi, vice president of marketing at WiMAX vendor TeleCIS Wireless. "I can add it in so that your latency never goes over five milliseconds."
That kind of flexibility plays especially well in Asia, which generally leads the world in next-generation wireless applications. According to research firm In-Stat, WiMAX will grow in the Asia Pacific region alone from 80,000 users in 2005 to more than 3.8 million by 2009 -- accounting for 45 percent of the world total.
While WiMAX-certified equipment for "fixed" wireless access will start reaching consumers en masse early next year, the mobile flavor of WiMAX, which enables broadband access while walking around town or driving down the highway, isn't expected to hit the scene until 2007 or 2008. And it's unclear what carriers and vendors will be involved. "It's a much more confusing space," said Sumi.
Other mobile broadband technologies are also vying for next-generation dominance. One oft-cited contender is Flash-OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) technology. Flash-OFDM just won tacit approval from wireless chip giant Qualcomm, which in August announced a $600 million deal to acquire the technology's inventor, Flarion Technologies.
"If anyone has had success in the wireless community in taking a proprietary technology and making it work, it's Qualcomm," said Derek Kerton, principal at consulting firm The Kerton Group.
Qualcomm has also been working on a service dubbed MediaFLO (forward link only) that will launch next year and offer one-way streaming video to cell phones over a part of the UHF broadcast TV spectrum that it recently won at auction.
But Qualcomm has hinted it might marry that service with separate two-way Flash-OFDM elements at some point. "There will be a relationship over time," said Rob Chandhok, Qualcomm MediaFLO's vice president of engineering and market development. "There might be cross-pollination."
Also on the 4G deck is UMTS TDD, the next generation of the UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) standard that was designed to succeed GSM-based networks. Now, UMTS TDD is trying to become the dominant next-generation technology for mobile broadband networks.
"Imagine an iPod that's just streaming over the network, or imagine an instant-messaging device that's really cheap for teenagers," said Chris Gilbert, CEO of UMTS TDD player IPWireless. "If it happens at the consumer level, it will be amazing.... It's data everywhere. It's voice everywhere. And cheaply."
Power brokers in the United States may get a firsthand look before long: Sprint/Nextel is already rolling out field trials of IPWireless' UMTS TDD-based technology in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding areas of Arlington, Alexandria and Reston, Virginia, as well as Bethesda, Maryland.
But with Intel backing WiMAX, Qualcomm spending big on Flash-OFDM and UMTS TDD flexing its global muscles, experts are loath to pick winners. "I think there will be multiple technologies because there are just so many players in the industry," said Gilbert.
As a result, wireless devices may become increasingly network agnostic. Motorola's new CN620 model, for example, can switch seamlessly between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Such Wi-Fi-enabled cell phones "can offload the network to Wi-Fi for heavy lifting," said Karen Hanley, spokeswoman for the Wi-Fi Alliance.
As next-generation networks proliferate, "the wireless technologies are going to start to merge together," said Sven Rassmussen, a LAN/WAN specialist at IT reseller CDW. "They're probably going to decide on a universal (device). I definitely see a Dick Tracy watch that does everything."
Whatever the technology, one likely component (in addition to higher data rates) of 4G will be 100-percent reliance on internet protocol, which would allow seamless integration of voice, data and multimedia on a grand scale never seen before.
But the larger question is how the wireless players intend to market it to the masses. "The challenge for the carrier is the business model," said Weise. "What's the model for the carrier? Are they going to be able to control all of these applications or will it be more software-driven?"
Indeed, a wireless user liberated by an IP-based network could conceivably get their broadband fixes from anywhere. Don't like the prices your carrier charges for ringtones or video content? Just download them from a third-party website.
"Once it's a broadband pipe, you start to lose control," said Roland Van der Meek, a senior partner at Palo Alto, California-based venture-capital firm ComVentures. "As they go all-IP, they don't want to lose the separate revenue streams."
Carriers especially want to avoid cannibalizing their core voice business. After all, consumers with wireless broadband can already make voice-over-IP calls from their laptops at Wi-Fi hotspots. Similarly, they could use Skype or some other VOIP service on their cell phones, assuming those phones have 4G wireless broadband access.
Of course, carriers could also block such end-run activity. "They could block specific functions," said Moto Wi4's Sergeant. "I think the question is whether it's good customer service."
One thing is certain: Wireless carriers will need to work through such issues as they roll out 4G. "Technology has a great tendency to be disruptive," said Weise. "We're seeing a bit of an arms race to upgrade networks."
