WiMAX is a Gain for Net Neutrality; Not a Global Play, says GSM Association Chairman

by Jeff Orr, Editor
Mobile Broadband News

During a recent interview with China’s InterFax at the ICT China Mobile Terminal Summit 2007 in Beijing, GSM Association Chairman Craig Ehrlich shared his views on the Mobile Broadband market, adoption of WiMAX as a 3G protocol, and the demise of CDMA.

Three billion mobile service customers are counted today utilizing GSM or CDMA derived protocols. Growth for the installed infrastructure is expected from the nearly 3 billion potential subscribers in the $15k-$20k annual income bracket. The 1 billion potential subscribers who have no income will likely remain out of reach for mobile operators and GSM technologies, notes Ehrlich.

When asked about the recent ITU recommendation approving IEEE802.16 (WiMAX) as a 3G air interface protocol, the GSMA Chair doesn’t see the decision impacting mobile broadband access on a global scale. “Mobile WiMAX could probably work in certain countries where there is something called ‘net neutrality’, which means you build a pipe and anybody who wants to put an application on it can do that,” said Ehrlich. “But as long as HSPA is controlled by an operator like China Mobile and China Unicom, they will decide who attaches to their network. In countries like China, they won’t allow net neutrality anyway. There are only a few countries, maybe America, that will allow that.”

Mobile communications vendors and operators are taking note of the ‘walled garden’ behaviors that Ehrlich described as a limitation of the current cellular industry. “We see a need for removing the walled garden approach of operator services and having an open architecture,” said Alvarion CEO Tzvika Friedman during the vendor’s Q3′2007 report call today. “Operators find the open WiMAX approach appealing.” Next generation protocols expected to be the basis for 4G services, such as Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) and Long-Term Evolution (LTE), are also making a switch to an IP-centric network to gain advantages of the open application platform. In addition to the operator benefits, it could be the quickest path to low-cost mobile devices for emerging technologies, such as WiMAX. “How does mobile WiMAX compete with an industry where we can have 3G handsets probably down to $50 to $60 next year?” quips Ehrlich.

The biggest trend witnessed by the GSM trade association is the movement of remaining CDMA operators to GSM-based networks. “Almost every CDMA company in the world is switching to GSM,” Ehrlich says. “CDMA will be around for at least another 5 years, or maybe 10 years. But CDMA has a problem with scale. Approximately 86 percent of the world uses the GSM family of technologies, including 2G and 3G. And the figure will probably go up to 90 percent.” Ehrlich adds that some CDMA operators, such as Brazil’s Vivo are migrating their networks to GSM in parallel to the CDMA operations, while others like Australia’s Telstra are cutting subscribers over to GSM immediately and have dismantled their CDMA infrastructure.

Read the full interview at InterFax.