The nation’s first, and so far only, carrier to announce plans for a nationwide mobile WiMAX network now faces the successful completion of tens of thousands of construction projects before it reaches reality.
Just a few weeks after announcing plans to collaborate on the development and operation of the network, Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. mapped out the regions each company will focus on in the arrangement.
Clearwire’s region, while significantly larger in size, will cover approximately 70 million fewer people than Sprint Nextel’s region, which is expected to cover around 185 million people. Clearwire’s WiMAX footprint eventually should cover about 115 million people in central and northern California, the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountain region, portions of the Midwest and most of the South, Alaska, Hawaii and swaths of New York, Pennsylvania and Texas. Sprint Nextel will build out its mobile WiMAX network coverage throughout the rest of the country.
“Sprint has a multi-vendor strategy in building this network, and has employed that approach with its current networks. We maintain flexibility in what we award and we will make those decisions in a manner to maximize the benefit to Sprint,” noted Doug Smith, VP of network engineering at Sprint Nextel.
Who gets what
The No. 3 wireless carrier has found infrastructure partners in Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Motorola Inc. and Nokia Siemens Networks for the series of detailed buildout projects on the horizon. Motorola has been awarded the Chicago region since its headquarters are nearby; Nokia Siemens has been given many of the Southwest projects thanks to its base in Texas; and Samsung is working on the Northeast corridor, Smith explained.
“This is more about dividing the effort than creating a competition. Each vendor’s equipment must be interoperable with the rest for a seamless and transparent customer experience,” he added.
“We try to work from a large pool and not single-source solutions,” he wrote in response to questions from RCR Wireless News. “We have leveraged all of our wireless capabilities and experience to come up with this allocation and believe it is the best approach to balance speed to market and costs. We are not using the infrastructure vendor to do the actual leasing/zoning/construction work. We are using several other third-party suppliers for this work and in fact are also working aggressively in many of the markets that have yet to be awarded.”
Sprint Nextel is looking to add WiMAX technology to about 15,000 cellular tower sites by the end of 2008; most of which will be existing sites requiring the installation of new equipment for WiMAX services. The company will also make deployment decisions as it assesses capabilities within the overall market and specific regions.
Clearwire moving ahead
Clearwire, which plans to launch its first mobile WiMAX market by the middle of next year, is on track to cover as many as 15 million people with its currently deployed pre-WiMAX Expedience solution from Motorola Inc. by the end of this year, a drop from the 16 million to 18 million expected to be covered prior to the Sprint Nextel partnership.
Clearwire has partnered with infrastructure vendors Intel Corp. and Motorola, and is working with both companies on a longstanding mobile WiMAX trial near Portland, Ore., Clearwire spokeswoman Helen Chung said. Clearwire wouldn’t detail its specific buildout plans for vendors and their respective responsibilities with the network’s deployment.
“Our transaction with Sprint Nextel is still not finalized, and we are targeting completion of the definitive documents in about 60 days from when we announced the partnership. At this time, it is premature to discuss market and buildout specifics of our WiMAX plans,” Chung said.
WiMAX challenges
Buildout is just the tip of the iceberg, however. With new technologies there are many inherent unknowns. And WiMAX is no different.
“There are many challenges in building a wireless network of this size and scope, such as obtaining the necessary permits and certifications from the wide range of jurisdictions we work with. In many cases it is the primary factor that determines how long it may take before we can install equipment,” Chung explained.
Nadine Manjaro, a senior analyst focusing on wireless infrastructure for ABI Research, believes the challenges facing Clearwire and Sprint Nextel will continue to unfold over the coming years.
Staples of network efficiency such as the coverage radius, interoperability between numerous competing vendors, in-building coverage and backhaul are all pressing matters that will have to be addressed before customers flock to the new technology, she said.
“With WiMAX I think some of the challenge they’re going to experience is that the cell radius is going to be smaller than expected,” she said. “WiMAX is limited to, they’re saying one kilometer, but I think it’s less than one kilometer.”
This compared to an average three-kilometer radius enjoyed with CDMA cell coverage and approximately 2.5 kilometers with HSDPA and HSUPA, Manjaro said.
Because of this, she sees some trouble down the road with Sprint Nextel’s plan to use its existing portfolio of towers for the buildout. “That’s all fine and dandy if the reach was the same,” she said, noting the particular problems it will present with indoor coverage, where the majority of wireless usage now occurs.
Sprint Nextel is already looking at inbuilding solutions such as picocells, femtocells and antennae systems to ensure coverage indoors, but each of those systems will make the cost of building the network much higher.
Still, Manjaro thinks the greatest challenges will be had in interoperability between multiple vendors. “I think the main issue is going to be interoperability. Interoperability, I think, is going to take some time,” she said.
Mix in the need for in-building coverage solutions along with Sprint Nextel’s recently announced plan to deploy its WiMAX network on an Ethernet-based backhaul, reportedly a first for any mobile provider, and the variables grow exponentially.
“For this to be fully functional there needs to be a lot more testing,” she said. “When you test something in the lab it only shows so much until you get it out there in a real atmosphere with real situations. I think the vendors are working and tweaking things as they go along.”
WiMAX boasts higher data rates, but Manjaro doesn’t think consumers will experience those speeds initially. “I don’t think it’s going to be that much better than EVDO Rev. A when it first comes out. They’re going to have to tweak with it over time,” she said.
The two companies expect to cover about 100 million people by the end of 2008-the same coverage area Sprint Nextel promised to cover prior to the tie-up-and enable seamless roaming between their respective deployed areas.
