Try to get this simple question answered: can I connect these two locations with
a wireless point-to-point link?  Sounds simple, right?  But in most
cases you would have to be an engineer in order to answer such a question. 
And how about being able to choose which technology and vendor to work with
without the long screening process and multiple discussions with several people
in each of the companies (not to mention buying and installing)?

If you want to find out how things should really work, try a new FREE tool from
AlphiMAX at www.alphimax.com/ptp. 
I only had to provide the coordinates for the two locations I wanted to connect
(there are several formats for doing that) and the planned heights of my towers. 
Then I hit "estimate" – and voila:

Within no more than 30 seconds I knew (without being an engineer or leaving my
seat) that my link would not work: there was something in my path.  I used
my mouse and changed the planned height of my tower by 20 feet by grabbing the
antenna on the drawn pole, hit "estimate" again and had the answer: my link
would now work.  Now I could choose from a long list of possible products
that had suitable capabilities for my planned link. 

I was also able to filter the results by manufacturer, antenna type, bandwidth,
or product family; compare vendor-capabilities; and select my specific domain in
the world (they actually use the product-parameters per region, taking relevant
regulations into account).  How cool is that?! Even though this tool may
not be fully accurate, I got a good idea of what my options were.  I could
even see how to point the antennas in azimuth and elevation, "hey Mike, did you
make sure to point the antenna on site A to 288.7 deg? And don’t get confused
with Magnetic, use True numbers, and don’t forget to up tilt it 0.9 degrees". 
I feel like a pro!

Now, what else would you need? Oh, let’s see if there are any details about the
link itself.  I click on one of the products and in the selected tab I see
all the information: link budget, part number, fade-margin, and more and more.

So far it seems that AlphiMAX has covered products in the unlicensed bands: 2.4,
4.5, 4.8, 4.9, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 and 5.8GHz, depending on the domain. 
Alphimax were able to do so since they chose to jump-start their tool with two
of the main wireless vendors: Motorola and Alvarion, both of which have a
variety of products in these bands.

And now for the fun part..I clicked the "Map View" button and my computer
downloaded and opened Google Earth.  The globe turned towards the location
I chose, my planned link was neatly placed on the map, and the two antennas were
showing on each of the planned sides.  By clicking on the various parts of
the map I could see my path (and in particular trees, buildings or lakes on the
way using the satellite view from Google), the link from each of the two sites,
and the antenna heights that I plugged into the tool earlier. 

The tool is provided at no charge when you register at the
AlphiMAX site.  For now, the tool
only includes Motorola and Alvarion products, but the company plans to add other
products in the near future.  With its easy to use interface and cool
graphics, I could see this being the go-to place for quick estimates on wireless
point-to-point links.

Evidence of the heavyweights of these countries involved in world events is no
longer in question; they now regularly participate in G20 summits, Rio will host
the 2016 Olympics as did China last year, and Brazil and India may become
permanent members of the UN Security Council within the next decade.

The potential is there?

As indicated in the table below, the BRIC countries represent almost half of the
world’s population and this will only increase in time.  However their
respective shares in t mobile and broadband penetration are lower than their
population weight should warrant, which indicates that there is still room for
growth.  The case of India is rather striking, as the country failed to
achieve its modest broadband policy objectives because of repeated delays in
modernizing a spectrum policy from a by gone era. 

Even if mobile penetration has made huge progress in the past 5 years, this
country, which is positioned as a world exporter of IT knowledge, has a shameful
1.5% of the world total broadband penetration share compared to its 17.6% of the
world population.  The actual country broadband penetration relative to its
own population is even lower, at less than 1%! China, Russia and Brazil have
done relatively better both in terms of mobile and broadband share of the world
total penetration relative to their population size, but these countries still
have a long way to go in terms of actual country broadband penetration.

Behind spectrum is a political battle

While it is clear that these countries represent a huge market opportunity, they
are also characterized by a rather messy regulatory environment that does not
foster confidence and discourages foreign investments.  In particular, I am
referring to the spectrum policy for broadband wireless access in these
countries.  With the exception of China, which has had a clear political
agenda to promote its homegrown TD-SCDMA technology, the other three countries
have followed a messy spectrum road for BWA in the recent years.

China has decided to allocate spectrum for 3G while essentially ignoring WiMAX
as a potential mobile technology, limiting it to the fixed arena in the 3.5GHz. 
There are no signs that the MIIT, the country’s Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology, is going to reverse that position.  On the
contrary, China, unlike many other countries, did not auction off its 3G
spectrum, nor did it allow its elected 3G operators to select the technology of
their choice, with the aim of building a strong home-installed base for TD-SCDMA. 
China continues to dictate its own agenda at its own pace for both 3G and the
expected LTE-TDD.

China’s refusal to release 2.3GH, 2.5GHz or more 3.5GHz spectrum for BWA and
WiMAX differs from the situation in the other BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia and
India, where regulators have been lacking a clear vision and a stance regarding
which technology can best help materialize that vision.  Instead, these
countries have been the battleground for lobbyists from the 2 opposing camps of
3G and WiMAX.  As a result of this political battle and influence on
regulators, spectrum availability has been repeatedly delayed and the rules for
services remained blurred, thus creating a climate of uncertainty for service
providers, equipment vendors and financiers about investing in broadband
networks and reviving sluggish broadband penetration.

The 3GPP camp champions 3G mobile standards (W-CDMA and CDMA 2000) as well as
LTE, while the WIMAX camp represented by the WIMAX Forum is essentially
championing 802.16e.  All countries have allocated 3G licenses, except for
India, which is scheduled to license both WiMAX and 3G spectrum in Q1 2010. 
The auction was originally scheduled to commence almost a year ago, but has been
subject to numerous delays including the Indian general elections last May. 
India aims to sell around four 3G licenses and three mobile broadband licenses
in 20 of the 22 telecom zones in the country. 

In the case of the 3G auction, the government has decided to auction up to 20
MHz of paired spectrum in the 2.1GHz band in the telecom service areas where 25
MHz or more paired spectrum is available.  In such cases, four blocks of
2×5 MHz will be auctioned, in addition to one block being reserved for BSNL and
MTNL (the two state-owned operators that have already been allocated spectrum). 
Not more than 1 block of 3G spectrum, 1 block of 800MHz spectrum or 1 block of
BWA spectrum is to be allocated to any single bidder within a service area.

In the case of Brazil and Russia, it is still not clear whether mobile services
can be provided with WiMAX.  Brazil still restricts the usage of 3.5GHz to
fixed only services, while in Russia mobile WIMAX operators are working in a
grey area as the country’s spectrum committee has yet to make clear rules
regarding what services will be allowed in the 2.5GHz frequency band.

The 3GPP camp’s PR and lobbying muscle is partly responsible for the delay and
messy spectrum situation in Brazil, Russia and India.  WiMAX supporters
feel they are denied access to huge markets for which WIMAX is well-suited
technology for fixed, portable and mobile applications.  In the meantime,
consumers and businesses in these countries can only wait and watch until a
winner emerges who will make broadband affordable and more widely available.

Adlane Fellah, Eng.  MBA is CEO and founder of
Maravedis Inc.  a world-leader
and pioneer in Broadband Wireless and WiMAX market research and analysis. 
He is a leading industry analyst and authored various landmark reports on WiMAX,
Broadband Wireless and Voice over IP (VoIP).  Mr.  Fellah is regularly
asked to speak at leading wireless events and to contribute to various
influential portals and magazines such as Telephony Magazine, WiMAX Trends,
WiMAX.com, to name a few.

Fellah is a member of the Program Advisory Board for the WiMAX World conference
since 2004 and an active member of the World Communications Association
International and the European Broadband Wireless Association.  Prior to
founding Maravedis, Fellah held various positions at Harris Corporation in
charge of market intelligence and business development for several product
lines.

In this article, I’ll explain what Smart Grid is, what the announcement means to
electric utilities and consumers, and the implications and opportunities for
WiMAX vendors.

What is Smart Grid?

The term "Smart Grid" means different things to different people, most using it
to their own advantage. But according to the United States Department of Energy
Modern Grid Initiative report, a modern smart grid must:

• Be able to heal itself
• Motivate consumers to actively participate in operations of the grid.
• Resist attack
• Provide higher quality power that will save money wasted from outages
• Accommodate all generation and storage options
• Enable electricity markets to flourish
• Run more efficiently

What is significant to the telecommunications industry is that most of these
require sophisticated communications networks in order to implement. In
particular, self-healing, consumer participation (including buying and selling
of electricity), and resisting attack are all integrally dependent on a
communications network overlay to the electrical grid.

In terms of what is going on in the utility business, Smart Grid sometimes
receive more marketing lip service than anything else. One utility
representative told me, "The same salesperson is coming in to sell me the same
thing as always, but now he says it’s part of Smart Grid."

This is one reason why Tuesday’s announcement was important. It is a significant
step toward reducing the hype and inaction, and toward implementing the vision.

What was Allocated


Last spring, the US Department of Energy began accepting requests for stimulus
dollars toward grid revitalization. Originally, there were to be three rounds of
funding, but the 400 requests were so overwhelming, the DOE decided to only
perform one award cycle. About 25% of the requests, covering 45 states and
territories, were granted, to the tune of $3.4B. Combining this with matching
spending by utilities and other private funds, the total commitment will exceed
$8B.

In announcing the awards, the Obama Administration outlined the following policy
goals and the related funding:

- Empowering Consumers to Save Energy and Cut Utility Bills – $1 billion.

- Making Electricity Distribution and Transmission More Efficient – $400
million.

- Integrating and Crosscutting Across Different "Smart" Components of a Smart
Grid – $2 billion.

- Building a Smart Grid Manufacturing Industry – $25 million.

The sexy part of this award is the first item, which pays for 18 million smart
meters (raising the U.S. total to 40 million, or 31% of all housing units). It
also covers one million in-home displays to help consumers monitor their energy
usage.

But to the telecommunications industry, the third item is more important, the
integration of components across the grid itself.

Going Beyond the Basics

The stimulus awards allow the electric industry to finally plant the pillars
upon which Smart Grid will be based. Certainly this is only a first step, but an
important one to an industry that is much more highly regulated than telecom –
and one funded in a vastly different way.

To the telecommunications industry, the excitement about Smart Grid isn’t about
smart meters, which are only a first step in two-way communication. (The
electric utility industry is years, even decades, behind what’s possible and
offered in the telecom industry). Where we’re really going with Smart Grid also
goes beyond in-home displays. When Smart Grid really starts to flower, it will
be capable of:

- Real-time rate (time-of-use) information delivered to the home, so that a home
energy decision-making computer can determine how to save money by turning off
appliances or even negotiating transactions to purchase from competing electric
providers.

- Two-way transactions to buy and sell energy. For example, consumers could sell
solar power or electric reserves from plug-in electric hybrid vehicles to energy
companies. In essence, the home becomes a power plant.

- More sophisticated fault management techniques.

All of these concepts hinge on communications networking. To achieve these more
advanced capabilities, though, utilities and consumers must start with a basic
Smart Grid that first gets the conversation going between the two entities.

An Avenue for WiMAX

There is a lot of discussion around the standards for Smart Grid, which goes
beyond the scope of this article. In short, standards will likely center on the
application data that flows between Smart Grid components – and its security.

This leaves plenty of room for transport options on the network, and for each
utility to decide the right networking for its needs. We can expect a mix of
private and public networks, and a mix of technologies. These decisions will be
driven by factors such as:

- Necessary security of the data – There is a lot of information that needs to
be secure, but there is also information that requires less security.

- Volume of data – The utility industry is bracing for the volume. Today,
metering typically consists of one-way monthly transactions of small amounts of
data. In the future, there will be a flood of data traveling both directions
over Smart Grid communications networks.

- Speed / latency – Quality of service and prioritization of data will be
important. These may drive different networking solutions, depending on data
types.

- Terrain and geography – An urban-based utility will have a different profile
than a rural cooperative.

These are just some of the many factors. As you can imagine, cost will be an
overriding factor in the discussion.

WiMAX is positioned to be well-suited to many of these needs. With its speed,
quality of service capabilities and security measures, WiMAX should be in the
mix as a telecom choice. Because the utilities in many cases will build their
own networks, there are green field opportunities that go beyond what the local
public cellular carriers might provide.

WiMAX vendors would do well to invest time and effort in studying Smart Grid
opportunities and learning how to take advantage, now that the pillars of Smart
Grid will be laid over the next few years.

Cecil Taylor is an independent consultant to companies in the telecom
industry, including the utilities and health care vertical markets. His
specialties include opportunity identification, strategic network architecture,
requirements planning and definition, and project management. Cecil can be
reached at networkedgrid@gmail.com

Despite the bleak economic conditions at the first of the year, operators are
starting to show signs of recovery with increases in subscribers and service
revenue growth.  This was based on analysis from
Maravedis and its 4G Counts service
that tracks 4G operator deployments and provides details on the 4G ecosystem
from over 200 operators in 92 countries.

The Maravedis webinar presented earlier in the week provided breakdowns of
network deployments, leading 4G operators, applications, usage and pricing.

According to the firm, approximately 560,000 BWA/WiMAX subscribers were added in
Q2 2009 – a 74% year-over-year growth rate since Q2 2008.  The total number
of BWA (broadband wireless access) and WiMAX subscribers was around 4 million at
the end of June 2009.

Based on their survey, 332, BWA/WiMAX networks had been deployed as of June 2009
of which 42% were for fixed WiMAX (802.16d) networks, 37% for mobile WiMAX
(802.16e) networks, and the remaining 21% for proprietary networks.  Also,
an additional 39 operators had committed to deploying LTE networks sometime in
the future.

The number of fixed WiMAX networks were hightest in Europe, while the most
mobile WiMAX networks were reported in the Asia/Pacific region.

Maravedis also presented the top 22 WiMAX operators Globaly in terms of the
number of subscribers.  Toping the list was Clearwire in the US with over
500K subscribers, followed by Inukshuk in Canada, Korea Telecom, and Telmex
International and Axtel in Mexico. 

Also interesting was the large amount of data usage reported by some operators
from their customers.  Both Tatung in Taiwan and Scartel in Russia reported
close to 10GB per month of usage by their subscribers, driving by unlimited data
plans and fixed rate pricing.

The webinar also highlighted some of the limitation and challenges faced by LTE
operators including lack of harmonized spectrum, delays in the availability of
LTE devices, interoperability/standardization and possible lack of funding
caused by the economic recession.

Also emphasized were the time-to-market and wide ecosystem advantages of WiMAX,
the strength of LTE with the support of the largest mobile players, and the need
for 3G operators to continue to address traffic growth on their networks.

The recent growth numbers are encouraging news for the industry and show the
demand for broadband, especially in emerging markets.  We expect that the
number of WiMAX subscribers in the next update of 4G Counts to increase
substantially with the inclusion of Russian WiMAX operator Yota which reportedly
reached 200,000 subscribers in early October, as well as Clearwire in the US
with its major market launches planned in Q4.