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4G Weekly Digest September 16th, 2009 - Volume 5, Issue 4

Editor's Foreword
By Adlane Fellah, CEO and Founder

This week the Maravedis team will be busy meeting many of you at the 4G World Conference in Chicago. There has already been a wave of product announcements, customer wins and the usual PR effort that start-ups and established players need to make to prove to the world they continue to lead.

Among some of the notable announcements:

Wavesat will launch its Odyssey 9000 family of LTE chipsets, claiming to be the first LTE chipsets featuring CAT-3 performance (100 Mbs downlink, 50 Mbs uplink) for mobile devices including USB dongles, data cards, mobile handsets, and MIDs. More importantly, Wavesat joins the LTE chipset race with the announcement that it is committing more resources to LTE, while at the same time announcing its new platform. This is quite a strong message that pure WiMAX chipset suppliers can no longer rely solely on WiMAX to survive in light of the low volumes generated so far by the market.
Aperto will be pushing hard to prove that fixed WIMAX 802.16-2004 is not dead, but rather serves a well-established market among operators offering last mile connectivity and numerous fixed vertical applications. In recent years, some members of the WIMAX forum have attempted to dismiss the viability and relevance of 802.16-2004.
Alvarion announced it will work with National Grid, the second-largest utility company in the U.S., to participate in a smart power grid (SPG) Proof of Concept in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The proof of concept will begin in September 2009, and will provide backhaul for SPG smart meters and distribution automation devices for residences and businesses using WiMAX.
PureWave Networks plans to release a line of low power compact mobile WiMAX base stations. Called Quantum and powered by an Ethernet connection and contained in a small tower-mounted cabinet, the base station incorporates specially built MIMO beamforming smart antenna technology and a software-defined radio platform.
Beceem announced they have shipped 1 million chipsets, an industry milestone.
ADC released its FlexWave 6000 MMX a light WiMAX Pico Base Station. The FlexWave Prism and InterReach DAS (distributed Antenna System) delivers 700 MHz LTE and the InterReach Fusion and Unison DAS offer MIMO or SISO configuration options for WiMAX which supports SISO and MIMO architectures. Who are ADC’s WiMAX customers? We have not seen much traction for them in the market yet among operators.
Wichorus has been chosen by Clearwire to supply its SmartCore platform as part of Clearwire's network. WiChorus is a 4G Packet Core provider. The announcement represents a blow to Cisco as the sole provider of Clearwire’s core packet and demonstrates once more that Clearwire wants to pursue a multi vendor strategy at all levels of its network, from RAN to devices and the core network
Motorola released two new WiMAX devices, CPEi725 (desktop unit) and the USBw200 dongle, which claim to improve signal strength and link budget by using MIMO and switched transmitter diversity. The USBw200 is claimed to draw less than 1.5 watts at peak power. Will these new devices be used on Clearwire’s network?
Sequans made several announcements, including partnering with Hellosoft to integrate Hellosoft VOIP capability for its voice/data CPE chip, and building a Sequans-powered USB dongle by Mitsumi approved for use on UQ Communications’ network.
DragonWave announced the release of Horizon Quantum, a new microwave radio claimed to deliver up to 4 Gbps per link. In addition, the half-rack-unit device incorporates key nodal-intelligence features such as aggregation and switch function for ring and mesh network architectures. The radio will be deployed by Clearwire, as handling of exponential growth in backhaul traffic has become a hot area for carriers and vendors alike.

Enjoy!

Adlane Fellah
Maravedis CEO & Founder