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| maybe because there is no competition? overseas there are Multple wi-max providers.... why is it only clearwire doing this in the usa? why is everyone partnering with them? why not have other carriers start their own up? heck if comcast put a wimax tower at every head end, that would be a start... maybe verizon have one at every CO... | | |
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| Because partnering with another company is cheaper and quicker. Also, companies don't want to invest lots of money in a technology they aren't sure will take off. Better to partner with another company and let them take the risk. If the conecpt proves successful, then build a network. | |
 en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | reply to neufuse
AT&T/VZW (The 'big' baby Bells) have vested interest into LTE as its tied into locked standards and very controlled. They also have spectrum in the cellular/pcs/aws range which is tied to these services. T-Mobile has a global leg which will be LTE, hence its US version will be as well.
This comes somewhat down to Microsoft vs Linux.
LTE = Microsoft (backed by big mega corp/lobbiests/global telcos/patent holders/equipment vendors)
WiMAX = Linux (IEEE standards, more 'open' to development, lower cost, backed by chip vendors)
--
Canada = Hollywood North | |
| Interesting that you use that analogy, since MS announced this week that they're working on a way for devices that would white space spectrum to determine if they would interfere with an existing service and avoid those frequencies. Interesting that MS is seemingly on the same side of an issue as Google, which is also pushing hard for the use of these frequencies for unlicensed access. | |
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | reply to en102
said by en102:This comes somewhat down to Microsoft vs Linux. LTE = Microsoft (backed by big mega corp/lobbiests/global telcos/patent holders/equipment vendors) WiMAX = Linux (IEEE standards, more 'open' to development, lower cost, backed by chip vendors) And WiMAX will never get out of being a proprietary (by not being mainstream, not by IP sense), embedded/niche/enterprise product. Expect WiMAX to power your local police department's cruiser data terminals on "public safety" 4.9 ghz band, not your daughter's phone. | |
| reply to neufuse
said by neufuse:there is no competition? overseas there are Multple wi-max providers.... why is it only clearwire doing this in the usa? Clearwire is definitely the largest and most financially back WiMAX provider, but it's hardly the only WiMAX provider in the USA. There's a whole bunch including: DigitalBridge, Open Range, Towerstream, Nth Air, Xanadoo, and a number of others, including, interestingly enough, AT&T-subsidiary AT&T Alascom serving Alaska. Could it be because WiMAX is cheaper than HSPA? And is deployable now, whereas LTE isn't?
'»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_de···networks'
'»www.wimaxmaps.org/'
why is everyone partnering with them? why not have other carriers start their own up?
As ISurfTooMuch said, "partnering with another company is cheaper and quicker."
It should be noted that cablecos: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House are significant equity partners in the "new" Clearwire, having invested $1.05 Billion, $550 million, and $100 million respectively. They have the right to operate as an Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) on Clearwire's network on a wholesale basis. Clearly, they intend to use this as their wireless play. This is a relatively cheap way to get into the national wireless game, which has enormous barriers to entry now.
Cox is taking a different route: deploying a CDMA/EvDO network its AWS spectrum, roaming on Sprint's 3G network, and deploying LTE in its 700 MHz spectrum. Clearly this is a more costly, difficult, and risky proposition, but they feel its worth it to own that pipe to their customers.
heck if comcast put a wimax tower at every head end, that would be a start... maybe verizon have one at every CO...
5 MHz of Clearwire's spectrum is reserved for WiMAX femtocells. Comcast has said they intend to eventually deploy a lot of them, possibly by having them integrated in cable modems and set top boxes (STBs).
Cablecos definitely need to provide more (fiber) backhaul to Clearwire. Unfortunately, I've heard almost nothing on that front. | |
| reply to patcat88
said by patcat88:And WiMAX will never get out of being a proprietary (by not being mainstream, not by IP sense), embedded/niche/enterprise product. Expect WiMAX to power your local police department's cruiser data terminals on "public safety" 4.9 ghz band, not your daughter's phone. Come on patcat, you know that's not what 'proprietary' means. WiMAX is already cheaper and better performing than 3G.
WiMAX will likely eventually dominate the 4.9 GHz Public Safety band, because it's a solid, standardized product/solution with multiple vendors, for a market currently dominated by Motorola's proprietary products/solutions.
Sprint has said they will offer a tri-mode CDMA/EvDO, WiMAX, and WiFi smartphone in 2010. The scuttlebutt is it's an Android phone from Samsung. | |
patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1
2 edits | said by Samsonian:Sprint has said they will offer a tri-mode CDMA/EvDO, WiMAX, and WiFi smartphone in 2010. The scuttlebutt is it's an Android phone from Samsung. Thats the problem. Its a smartphone. Its just 1. And its Android which doesn't have mainstream acceptance. Your teenage daughter won't be using one. Neither will the corporate suit (unless their CIO is a FOSS geek and the corp runs off FOSS intranet apps), or the soccer mom who wants to play mp3s and check entertainment gossip and record amateur vids and pics occasionally. The sheeple/joe six pack want an simple, low options, premade experience, idiot proof, walled garden iPhone*, not a full blown, all the options, open (egh, poor FOSS culture, but you can load your own apps out of the box), geek OS like Windows Mobile phones. I'm not sure where Android falls between the 2.
Also, I'm not sure if Android is OS Standard, like POSIX or LSB or freedesktop, plus API for 3rd party user loaded apps, and a standard OS layout and core tools, plus a Reference Implementation of the standard made by Google as a live OS,
or, Android is just an OS with no real ability to cleanroom rewrite it as closed source, or under another license? (AKA, as practical and feasible as to write a closed source interpreter for Perl, as a compliment to perl, since Perl makes no effort to be a standard, and the standard is whatever the perl source does) Can you write a closed source OS to run FOSS Android apps? Also does Android include human interface design guidlines/one GUI theme/one widget set, or is that left up to the phone maker and app developer independently?
*Look at how many people still watch walled garden TV, or use walled garden non-smartphone OS phones, or never leave their carrier's WAP deck, even though there are real alternatives (WWW IPTV, and WM/Android/Symbian/Palm(?)). | |
| said by patcat88:Thats the problem. Its a smartphone. Its just 1. Sprint has been vague on this front. But as a major carrier, it's a safe bet that they're working behind the scenes. They did get the Palm Pre after all. I'm sure they're working with HTC, Motorola, Palm, Samsung, and others to get the most competitive line up of phones possible. They probably won't announce anything until it's relatively concrete and near ready to go.
And its Android which doesn't have mainstream acceptance.
The Android platform and the first Android phone only came in October 2008, it's still very young. Despite this, it's come a long way, and has a lot of development and momentum behind it. You should take another look at it, you might be surprised and see the potential it has.
Google expects ~18 Android phones by end of the year, maybe 50+ next year. HTC, Moto, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and others have announced phones and plans for more.
'»bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/2···ars-end/'
'»community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,100···b,00.htm'
'»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(o···_system)'
Your teenage daughter won't be using one. Neither will the corporate suit (unless their CIO is a FOSS geek and the corp runs off FOSS intranet apps), or the soccer mom who wants to play mp3s and check entertainment gossip and record amateur vids and pics occasionally.
'»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(o···Features'
The Android platform supports MMS/SMS, MS Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), a full web browser (WebKit-based like Chrome and Safari), 3D graphics for games, A/V support (MPEG 4 A/SP / H.263, MPEG 4 AVC / H.264, MP3, AAC, etc.), image support (JPEG, GIF, PNG), 3rd party app support (including a 'Market' with OTA dl's), support for hardware features like: touchscreens, still/video cameras, accelerometers, etc.
Considering all that, why wouldn't corporate types, moms, and teenagers, or anyone else want a sleek, easy to use, affordable phone that can do those things?
The sheeple/joe six pack want an simple, low options, premade experience, idiot proof, walled garden iPhone*, not a full blown, all the options, open (egh, poor FOSS culture, but you can load your own apps out of the box), geek OS like Windows Mobile phones. I'm not sure where Android falls between the 2.
I too share your frustration with the FOSS communities' general lack of attention to detail on user interfaces (UI). But, considering we're getting something for free, and it gets better over time, there's no need to take a dump on them. A number of projects like Mozilla Firefox and Apache have done a great job.
Android has also done good job with the GUI. Android may not be competitive with the latest and greatest 'hero phones' from Apple, Palm, and RIM, but most people can't afford those phones (with their crazy expensive service plans).
If you can afford it, go ahead and get one of those and be happy. But if you can't, Android based phones will likely be 'good enough' to be the everyman's smartphone.
Also, I'm not sure if Android is OS Standard, like POSIX or LSB or freedesktop, plus API for 3rd party user loaded apps, and a standard OS layout and core tools, plus a Reference Implementation of the standard made by Google as a live OS,
or, Android is just an OS with no real ability to cleanroom rewrite it as closed source, or under another license? (AKA, as practical and feasible as to write a closed source interpreter for Perl, as a compliment to perl, since Perl makes no effort to be a standard, and the standard is whatever the perl source does) Can you write a closed source OS to run FOSS Android apps? Also does Android include human interface design guidlines/one GUI theme/one widget set, or is that left up to the phone maker and app developer independently?
While I'm a technically minded young lad, I'm not a software developer (just don't have the chops for it, I tried years ago =/ ), but here's what I know of the technical details:
Android is a free, open source software (FOSS) project, shepherded by Google, to create an advanced, free mobile platform. It's designed to as friendly and open as possible to handset vendors, software developers, mobile operators, and users.
It's based on a modified Linux kernel, and a modified Java Virtual Machine called Dalvik (technically not Java b/c of that), uses the Java language with more languages being added. A software development kit (SDK) is available to create 3rd party apps.
I was a bit skeptical at first, because it was yet another mobile platform, completely new and thus little to nothing would carry over, and we'd see more fragmentation in the market.
Thankfully that wasn't the case, we've seen a lot coalescing around Android, and it has a lot of momentum going forward. There's a lot of good apps available, and more coming. Take a look, you might be impressed with the results (less than a year since intro):
'»www.android.com/market/'
Keep in mind Google is trying herd a lot of cats (handset vendors, mobile operators, and software developers) and have something end users want.
No small feat.
*Look at how many people still watch walled garden TV, or use walled garden non-smartphone OS phones, or never leave their carrier's WAP deck, even though there are real alternatives (WWW IPTV, and WM/Android/Symbian/Palm(?)).
VCast, MediaFlo, etc. are all pretty lame and expensive. I'm sure the walled garden will fall (if it hasn't already). | |
Reviews:
·Comcast
| reply to Samsonian
Comcast *could* have a company like Cisco integrate femtocells into wireless router/gateways or cable modems (Cisco supplies both to Comcast today, through their Linksys and Scientific Atlanta subsidiaries). Problem: Cisco's Linksys subsid has a deal with Vonage. (Can you say *noncompete clause*? Cisco is also in the VoIP business itself, albeit enterprise-level VoIP, it isa deals like the one with Vonage that are *all* about keeping Cisco out of consumer VoIP.)
Comcast owns a lot of fiber; however, some of it is not wholly Comcast-owned (such as the joint expansion with Level 3). Both Comcast and TWC are customers of Level 3 (which also has a backhaul-supplier deal itself with Clear). The buildout is taking a while because there are some *physical* operations that have to be done (whether by the cablecos or Clear), and permitting chews up time. | |
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