?We have had a huge explosion in data traffic,? said Ned Hooper, Cisco?s chief
strategy officer.   ?We expect the market for mobile data to double
every year through 2013.?

In a most revealing blog on his company’s web site, Simon Aspinall, Senior
Director of Service Provider Marketing provides motivation for Cisco’s
acquisition of Starent Networks.   WIth its purchase of Starent, Cisco
will enable the sending of IP content wirelessly via carrier networks.

"The next step in the evolution of the Internet is to make it available anywhere
and at any time, which requires the convergence of the mobile world and
Internet.   The ?Mobile Internet? will offer the services and
applications from the Internet on-the-move, and on any device.   This
market is growing rapidly, with IP-enabled Smartphones like the iPhone and
Blackberry, low-cost netbooks, games handsets, digital cameras and other
consumer electronics, mobile connected devices are becoming a part of everyday
life for millions of people around the world." he says.

Cisco has predicted that almost 64% of the world?s mobile data traffic will be
video by 2013, according to the

Cisco Visual Networking Index.

Aspinall added, "As a fast-growing provider of multimedia solutions designed to
enable mobile operators to deliver Mobile Internet to their subscribers, Starent
Networks is a key player in the Mobile Internet transformation.   The
company has more than 100 customer deployments in 45 countries worldwide, with
many of the world?s most prominent and innovative mobile operators.  
We believe that, together, Cisco and Starent Networks bring complementary
solutions designed to help accelerate the transition to the rapidly growing
Mobile Internet.   We believe the Mobile Internet is a huge transition
that is happening very quickly, and we believe this is the right time for Cisco
and Starent Networks to combine their strengths to enable operators to launch,
deliver and profit from the next wave of mobile multimedia applications and
services."

Cisco CEO John Chambers "believes in video, and points to how the early use of
the Internet in business systems resulted in faster economic growth in regions
where it was used," according to Peter Christy, an analyst at Internet Research
Group.   "Now that phenomenon has slowed down, Chambers is interested
in networking that facilitates human collaboration."

Starent?s main customer is Verizon Wireless, which accounted for about 70
percent of sales in the second quarter.   Other customers include
Vodafone Group Plc and Sprint Nextel Corp., according to Starent?s Web site.  
?Starent?s efforts to diversify away from Verizon may have been an uphill
battle,? Anil Doradla, an analyst at William Blair & Co.   in Chicago,
said today in a note to investors.   ?With Cisco?s backing, we believe
the company is better positioned to compete for business with Tier-1 mobile
operators outside Verizon.?

Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala noted that while Starent makes carrier
equipment for a range of wireless protocols, including high-speed WiMax
technology, it also makes gear for LTE, the leading competitor to WiMax.  
Kerravala said Cisco’s interest in Starent is primarily the LTE component, which
gives Cisco the ability to broaden its product mix, much as competitors Nokia,
Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei Technologies have done.

Opinion:

We believe that the Starent acquisition is to position Cisco to compete in
mobile Internet infrastructure-initially with 3G protocols and later with LTE.  
We wonder if there is any mobile WiMAX in Cisco’s bag of tricks? Yes, we know
that Cisco is the "Core IP NGN" vendor to Clearwire and several WiMAX providers,
but that has nothing to do with the mobility portion of the WiMAX networks.

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In his keynote presentation at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress event held in
Amsterdam last month, Barry West, who now heads up the international interests
of Clearwire, said one of his priorities in the coming months was to persuade
operators to adopt WiMAX Profile C.

At first glance, the need to do so might seem strange.  Why would any
operator not want to choose Profile C, which stipulates an open and
non-proprietary interface standard (R6) between the BTS and the ASN Gateway? 
As Profile C operators are not tied into one vendor for BTS and ASN Gateway
equipment, they can force prices down through playing off different suppliers
against each other.  They can also choose the suppliers that can best
support the functionality and services they want to offer over their network
rather than being tied to one vendor that might not be up to the job.

But, as West implies, the case for Profile C is not clear cut; if it were, he
would not need to campaign for its adoption.  Despite the apparent
advantages of Profile C, some ‘turnkey’ vendors are still successfully tempting
operators with the two other Profiles available between the BTS and ASN Gateway:
Profile A and Profile B.  As both Profiles can create vendor lock-ins, they
stand in the way of WiMAX interoperability progress between multiple vendors
and, potentially, lower equipment prices.

In some cases, though, there are strong arguments not to use Profile C,
particularly if operators can avoid the expense of a large ASN Gateway. 
While Cisco believes that Profile C is the better choice for WiMAX operators
offering mobility services, not least because it centralizes the decision-making
for call handoffs between different BTSs – which then makes it easier for the
operator to control RAN traffic and offer QoS – this functionality is clearly
not necessary for a WiMAX operator focused on fixed and portable services only. 
"Where handoff is not required, Profile B can be adequate," says Paul Sergeant,
Mobile WiMAX Solutions Manager at Cisco.  "Profile C still has some
advantages, even in this case – such as QoS – but it may not justify the extra
cost."

Profile B does not define any interface between the BTS and the ASN Gateway, so
it is possible for Profile B vendors to pursue proprietary solutions and lock in
their customers.  Due to increased customer demand, however, many of the
big WiMAX suppliers that started out by supplying profile B equipment, including
Cisco (through its acquisition of Navini Networks) are now shifting to Profile
C.  According to Sergeant, nearly all of Cisco’s 20-plus commercially
deployed WiMAX operator customers are moving from Profile B to Profile C. 
This is an encouraging sign for Barry West and all those in the WiMAX community
campaigning for open network architectures, particularly if R6 interfaces can be
fairly easily software-installed on Profile B kit as Sergeant indicates.

Profile C Stumbling Blocks

One potential fly in the WiMAX interoperability ointment is Motorola, which has
long been a Profile B supporter.  Although Motorola’s WiMAX literature
points out that its wi4 equipment is ‘functionally aligned with Profile C’ – no
doubt largely due to intense pressure from Clearwire to which it supplies
802.16e kit – there is a feeling in the WiMAX community that Motorola will not
be able to make the transition from Profile B to Profile C as easily as others. 
One senior executive of an independent ASN Gateway supplier, who wished to
remain anonymous, told Wimax.com: "Some companies have hardware pieces which are
very difficult to change to Profile C and Motorola is one of those companies. 
They may have a hard time making the change [to Profile C]."

One person willing to go on record about Motorola is Peter Ziegelwanger, CTO at
Wimax Telecom, a small operator with a network presence in Austria, Slovakia and
Croatia.  "[Profile C] is a complete change in Motorola’s core network
architecture and has a lot of impact on its existing networks," he says. 
Wimax.com was not able to get a response from Motorola regarding how many of its
customers it has moved from Profile B to Profile C, or to get an update on how
many interoperability partners it has (or is in interoperability testing) for
its BTS and ASN Gateway equipment.  However, with at least 19 WiMAX
contracts to its name, as well as what it says is more than 75 WiMAX
‘engagements’ in 44 countries worldwide, Motorola is a major WiMAX player. 
The speed that Motorola moves to Profile C will play a big part in how far the
R6 interface is made available in different parts of the world. 

Another big Profile C stumbling block is Alcatel-Lucent, which is a keen
advocate of Profile A and has no plans to develop Profile C WiMAX equipment. 
While the R6 interface is used between the BTS and the ASN Gateway under Profile
A, the RRM (Radio Resource Management) is split between the BTS and the ASN
Gateway: the RRA (Radio Resource Agent) resides in the BTS while the RRC (Radio
Resource Controller) is placed in the ASN Gateway.  The upshot is that
operators using Profile A must have the same supplier for the BTS and the ASN
Gateway.  And for some operators, if the price and performance is right,
Profile A is a reasonable (if not ideal) solution.  Wimax Telecom, for
example, selected Profile A equipment from Alcatel-Lucent to roll an 802.16e
network in Croatia. 

"We do not support an open R6 interface as there has been no market request for
it so far, at least in the ‘enhanced wireless DSL’ market segment that we are
targeting, and where we have seen the bulk of market activity in terms of WiMAX
deployments," an Alcatel-Lucent spokesperson told Wimax.com. 
"Additionally, the vast majority of WiMAX deployments are single RAN supplier
deployments, and even in those cases where there are networks supplied by
several RAN vendors they are typically split into different areas/cities, each
of them being supported by one RAN manufacturer."

Like Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent has a big 802.16e presence around the world. 
As of the beginning of 2Q 2009, the French-US supplier was supplying 802.16e kit
for 15 commercial networks worldwide, with a total of 36 Mobile WiMAX contracts
under its belt.  Alcatel-Lucent’s resistance to Profile C is and will be a
big restraining factor on the spread of R6.

Profile C Momentum

The Profile C question marks hanging over Motorola, plus the outright Profile C
defiance from Alcatel-Lucent, shouldn’t detract from the significant amount of
interoperability progress that has been made on IOT and partnership-forming
between different BTS and ASN Gateway vendors via the open R6 standard and
Profile C.  Much of the groundwork on this has been done – through
necessity – by the smaller standalone BTS vendors that don’t have the resources
to develop ASN Gateways, such as Alvarion, WiNetworks, Aperto and Airspan. 
They need Profile C to get a foothold into the market. 

The WiMAX Forum is also embarking on a NWIOT (Network Interoperability Testing)
certification program that will only rubber-stamp equipment using R6 as part of
Profile C.  The WiMAX Forum had previously taken the position of letting
the market decide between Profile B and Profile C – it had earlier dropped its
support of Profile A – much to the annoyance of the smaller, independent WiMAX
kit suppliers.

The WiMAX Forum’s unequivocal backing of Profile C is warmly welcomed by the
likes of WiChorus, a standalone supplier of ASN Gateways and Home Agents that
has been active in promoting Profile C through its own IOT initiative, the One
Open WiMAX program.  "We have reached the tipping point for Profile C,"
says Rehan Jalil, WiChorus’ CEO, "but still a lot of work needs to be done."
Part of that WiChorus work, says Jalil, is supporting base station vendors even
if they are not yet fully Profile C compliant.

In the past, turnkey WiMAX kit suppliers would typically say to their
prospective operator customers that Profile A or Profile B was the way to go
unless they wanted to get embroiled in time-consuming IOT with multiple vendors
with little chance of a satisfactory outcome.  That argument is much less
convincing now, particularly as Clearwire has been a staunch Profile C supporter
from the beginning.  Barry West, when persuading operators to go down the
Profile C route, can also say as part of his sales pitch that they don’t need to
do any IOT on vendors’ kit that has already been tested on Clearwire’s network.

Profile C looks the way to go for most operators going forward but it may take a
bit of time yet before it becomes what the open architecture proponents crave –
a de facto standard.

Ken Wieland has been reporting and commentating on the telecom industry for
15 years. He has held various senior editorial positions, including most
recently as Editor of WiMAX Vision magazine at Informa Telecoms & Media. Now
working as a freelance telecoms writer, Ken contributes analysis and opinion
pieces to a number of websites, including the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit). 
He can be contacted at
ken2wieland@yahoo.co.uk.

 

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Now after the announcement last month of a multi-year deal between Cisco and
Clearwire, the waiting is over – and you have to think Cisco just delivered a
big wake-up call about WiMax to Silicon Valley and Wall Street in one big move.

What really made the deal big news was the inclusion of Cisco’s pledge to ship a
mobile WiMax end-user device before year’s end. The other part of the deal,
which involves Clearwire using Cisco gear in its core IP network, isn’t so
surprising — in any IP network of Clearwire’s size, you might be more surprised
not to find Cisco gear in the wiring closets.

But by pledging to develop end-user devices, Cisco is signaling to the rest of
the industry (and investors, if they are listening) that WiMax is more than a
curiousity. Cisco CEO John Chambers is famous for not wanting to get into new
businesses until they offer Cisco significantly large opportunities, usually in
the billion-dollar range. Is WiMax the next billion-dollar business for Cisco?
Thanks to the May 13 deal, that question is now more than hypothetical.

And now, with more Clearwire markets coming on line, Cisco’s planned device may
have a lot more potential users. As Clearwire officially launches its Atlanta
market June 16, the company is in the midst of some aggressive pricing
promotions, including a new unlimited-use home and mobile package for $55 per
month. The new prices, Clearwire said, will be available in all its "live"
markets, which include Portland, Atlanta and Las Vegas (which will "officially"
launch later this summer even though services are being sold already).

In a recent call following up on the company’s first-quarter earnings
announcement, Clearwire chief strategy officer Scott Richardson said that some
better-than-expected network performance was partially behind the idea of the
new "bundled" pricing plans.

The "Pick 2" unlimited plan promotions, for example, allow either a mobile and
home connection — or two mobile connections — for just $55 a month (regular
price $80/month), with download speeds of 6 Mbps. Such plans might be
interesting to users who want to deploy Clearwire’s Clear Spot Wi-Fi/WiMax
router, a $139.99 device that lets up to eight different Wi-Fi connections
piggyback off a WiMax service plan. The "unlimited" part of the plan, Richardson
said, is the part that other wireless data providers might have a hard time
matching.

"Our friends in the 3G space [with similar products] are already limiting
application use," Richardson said. "Providing open access is the strategy that’s
really important to us. I don’t think that’s the kind of thing the cellular guys
can really support."

PAUL KAPUSTKA is the editor and founder of SIDECUT REPORTS, which recently
released its "Clearwire NTK" research report (which stands for Clearwire — Need
To Know), priced at just $4.95. You can order the report directly by following
this
link.