NGN Ventures: Emerging Wireless Alternatives, The Broadband Frontier

"I'm a big fan of WLAN," said Ray Dolan, Chairman & CEO of Flarion Technologies. 802.11 is already the WLAN winner and it will be wildly successful for many years. The problem is the wireless WAN. "Users hate 3G and 2.5G" because the experience is all wrong. What people really want is ubiquity between wireless LANs and WANs. They want seamless IP access to existing applications and devices that they already like using, such as laptops, PDAs, digital cameras, and consumer entertainment electronics. Flarion is creating an alternative to 3G that complements WLAN. Its radio router system enables an all-IP single voice/data network based on OFDM. Flarion base stations would be installed at wireless operators' towers, and Flarion chipsets would be used in client devices. The company is working on standards with the new IEEE 802.20 working group, and the company expects to have more than ten trials underway with wireless carriers by year end. Dolan expects the Flarion system to have a reach of four to five miles, burst data rates of 300 kbps at the edge and 3 Mbps at center.


According to Pankaj Manglik, President & CEO of Aruba Wireless Networks, WLAN is one of the few technologies that started in the home and was taken to the enterprise. However, WLAN in businesses need to be managed, and a fundamentally different approach must be taken to achieve this. WLAN will follow the same evolution as Ethernet. WLAN networks need a switch that plays a similar enabling role to multi-port Ethernet hubs. Manglik said that a WLAN switch takes a holistic view of all an enterprises' WLAN problems and deals with them together instead of treating each problem separately. Aruba's WLAN switch connects WLAN access points, allowing an enterprise to treat an access point as if it is simply a port. The switch can detect and block "rogue" access points to prevent creation of air space security holes, and offers active management and self-healing control of access points.


Vivato Networks is scaling WiFi from the enterprise up to the metro level, according to CTO Skip Crilly. The company's WiFi switching technology addresses the problem of achieving a broad coverage area in unlicensed bands by generating multiple point to point packet beams, each approximately eight degrees wide. Vivato says that the benefits of WiFi switching over alternative WiFi solutions are a decreased cost of deployment, increased capacity, centralized management, and better security while providing backwards compatibility with existing WiFi clients. The Vivato switch integrates an edge LAN switch, security features, WLAN access controller, and all access points. The switch communicates directly to client devices or to "bridging" APs in distant locations, over a range that can extend multiple kilometers. It can support up to 150 active clients using standard WiFi client adapters within a 100 degree area while providing a "reasonable performance experience." Vivato, which is developing capacity that scales up to 1 Gbps, targets its solution at enterprises and carriers who want to offer first mile wireless access.


WLAN has already gone through the standards wave, and WiFi is the answer, said Greg Raleigh, CEO of Airgo Networks. The next wave is about making WLAN ubiquitous and robust. While there is a WLAN mass market, Raleigh does not believe that it will go truly mainstream until WLAN systems are less costly, easier to install and maintain, range and data limits are lifted, and can be centrally managed. WLAN switch developers are in a race with 802.11 committees to see who can first solve these problems. Airgo believes the best path is through integrating new standards into current product classes, rather than creating an all new category of boxes. Raleigh expects these standards to be finalized by year end, and will integrate them into their WiFi chipsets. Airgo is also developing technology to take advantage of multipath effects rather than combat them. The company uses multiple standard antennas and specialized signal processing of multipath signals in its solution.


We see many approaches to solving the same wireless problems, said Bruce Sachs, General Partner at Charles River Ventures. The 802.11 category is over funded with lots of companies that have similar value propositions. He believes that the companies that win may do so on execution, sales and marketing, rather than technology. As for some of the specific solutions proposed, he does not believe that creating one access point to cover a full floor or a part of a city makes sense. Sachs described goals of a 4-7 kilometer coverage range from a single device as "silly unless it used in a cornfield." This approach will not work in urban environments with buildings, so he does not anticipate a big market for super-wide range systems. He warned that existing enterprise switching companies could simply integrate this wireless switching functionality into their systems with a firmware upgrade. They may develop this themselves or acquire a startup's technology, but ultimately he believes that the current players will still control this market. Sachs does not believe that 3G will be the WAN data solution. The throughput is too small, and does not give consumers enough of a data boost to enable useful new applications and create substantial customer demand.


We have to transition from hot spots to hot zones that cover a wide space, according to Dr. Al Javed, VP Wireless Networks Technology at Nortel Networks. There are many technical approaches that can be used to increase range and throughput. Mesh networking may offer an attractive option by allowing access points to communicate with each other. "Micro access providers" may be able to use this technology to provide last mile access. Javed believes 3G is good for more than voice. He views 3G and WiFi hot spots as complementary technologies that will be rolled out in parallel. WiFi will get people into the habit of mobile data usage. As people come to want access over a wide area, 3G can provide it. He envisions transparent switching between 3G and WiFi networks, and believes that mobile data usage will be very different than the desktop paradigm, making it something that 3G can deliver.