High-tech giants battle for internet future
Dubai: Two giants of the high-tech world are battling it out for a kingly prize the future of the wireless Internet and both have the Middle East in their sights.
On one end is Intel, the Silicon Valley-based chipmaker that developed the popular Wi-fi microchips that allow café-goers and travellers at airports wireless access to the Internet. Intel has now co-developed a new technology, WiMAX, which promises high-bandwidth connectivity at distances many times greater than Wi-fi.
In the Middle East, WiMAX is quickly making a name for itself. Last month du CEO Osman Sultan told a conference crowd he would build a WiMAX network, and MTC-Vodafone in Bahrain is believed to be planning the same.
On the other is Qualcomm, another American firm that earned its stripes by developing a cellular technology, CDMA, now ubiquitous in many parts of the world through it and its variants, WCDMA and UMTS. These standards are used by many operators around the world as the backbone for their cellular networks.
The worlds of the phone and the computer are now merging, and companies like Nokia, RIM and Sony Ericsson are making smart phones with ever-quicker access to the Internet. Intel and Qualcomm progressed along parallel paths by providing the brains to computers and phones, respectively. But now their worlds are colliding, and both have sent emissaries to traverse the Middle East and convince telecoms that the future lies only with them.
WiMAX is Wi-fi on steroids. It is a nascent wireless standard that transmits data five to seven kilometers away, as compared to Wi-fi’s 100 feet. Intel helped create the WiMAX Forum along with Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. Last December the industry group agreed on a WiMAX standard, paving the way for equipment makers and carriers to begin developing products and services. Intel has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in startups to help develop a market for its new WiMAX microchips.
Although it holds promise for many applications WiMAX will not likely replace DSL or broadband access, according to Daryl Schoolar, a WiMAX analyst at In-Stat, an American market research firm. “WiMAX doesn’t provide enough bandwidth to compete with DSL & cable,” he said. “Plus, the latter two can bundle other services.”
Qualcomm, realising it needed newer technologies if it was to retain its dominant position in mobile communications, began thinking beyond its CDMA technology. It developed EVDO to handle faster data downloads, and then in 2005 paid $810 million to buy Flarion Technologies, which had developed a wireless technology that rivaled WiMAX. Another technology HSDPA, or high-speed data packet access, is also based on Qualcomm’s UMTS standard. According to industry estimates this 3.5G technology offers ten times faster downloads than 3G.
Qualcomm suffered a blow last month after Sprint Nextel in the US declared it would build a $3 billion WiMAX network, after testing both the WiMAX and Qualcomm’s Flarion network.
At the 4th Middle East Mobility and Broadband Summit in Dubai last month, Luigi Gasparollo, vice president and business development manager for Qualcomm Middle East and North Africa, sought to dismantle the idea that WiMAX was a “one-size fits all” application.
“Our position is that WiMAX is a good technology but it cannot do all the things people are proposing,” he said during a panel discussion that included a spokesman from the WiMAX Forum. Gasparollo said WiMAX is a good solution for homes that are not reached by DSL, and by new telecom operators not currently using Qualcomm’s UMTS technology.
But operators already using Qualcomm-patented technology for their networks would have a hard time switching over to WiMAX, he said. Instead operators could more seamlessly upgrade to the most modern cellular technologies Qualcomm has helped develop, such as many 3G and 3.5G platforms, he said.
Gasparollo said 3G currently enjoys a four-year advantage for portable and mobile access over WiMAX. Hundreds of devices have been designed to handle 3G technologies, whereas WiMAX is starting from scratch.
“The assumption that WiMAX will replace UMTS is simply not true Europe is all UMTS, and they tested WiMAX and said they don’t need it,” he said.
No Responses to “High-tech giants battle for internet future”
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
