Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Flarion could be Nextel's wireless data "ace in the hole"-NOT!

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 20:41:42 -0500

Bumbling Barry & Timmy have ruled out Flarion at this time.

"Nextel has recently juiced up network data performance to around
50 kbps by using compression technology, but that is still in the
slow lane compared to Verizon's 144 kbps top speed capability with
CDMA-1x."

Yea but this is only on the PCMCIA Data Card, handsets still crawwwwllllll!

-----------------

Adoption of Flarion technology
could give Nextel the last laugh; (NOT)
IP platform could give carrier
needed speed

      By Kirk Laughlin
      America's Network

A Verizon Wireless executive joked last year that Nextel's
crawling data speeds prove that the carrier simply doesn't have
the muscle to become mobile data's playground bully.
"I'd like to know whose butt their going to kick at 19.2 [kbps],"
said Jim Straight, Verizon's vice president of wireless data and
Internet services at the Las Vegas CTIA-IT show, dismissing Nextel
's iDEN network as too slow to win business from data-focused
enterprises.

Nextel has recently juiced up network data performance to around
50 kbps by using compression technology, but that is still in the
slow lane compared to Verizon's 144 kbps top speed capability with
CDMA-1x.

On one hand, Nextel executives call the data speed debate a
"marketing game," pointing out that customers are not complaining.
"Our business customers are perfectly satisfied with the speed
that they're getting because it's short, bursty information," says
Nextel CEO Tim Donahue.

But, Donahue also believes that wireless data technology will
mature to a point when delivery of broadband to mobile devices
will present real value to the operator and subscriber. "Do I
think that eventually broadband data networks in the wireless
world are going to be a necessity? Yes, I do."

Nextel has long been courted by Qualcomm (Nextel is currently a
member of the CDMA Development Group), wanting the carrier to
climb aboard the higher-speed CDMA air-interface expressway.

Problem is - Nextel appears to have little interest in CDMA and
instead is mesmerized by the potential of Flarion's Flash OFDM
solution, which Donahue describes as a "wonderful new technology."

With flare
Flarion, a Lucent Technologies spinoff, has come up with a
proprietary all-IP network solution that uses Flash OFDM as the
air-interface and mobile IP to support handoffs and roaming,
including linking seamlessly to Wi-Fi networks. The result is the
efficient delivery of genuine "LAN-like" broadband to mobile
terminals (1.5 Mbps), a feat that could catapult the solution past
peak performances levels promised by the most robust 3G platforms
of UMTS and CDMA2000.

Flash OFDM offers low-latency and can dynamically allocate
bandwidth on the fly. Because it relies on a pure IP platform, the
solution makes little distinction between voice and data.

"To us the IP feature is black magic," says Ronny Haraldsvik,
Flarion's senior director of marketing strategy. The company plans
on drawing revenue in three key areas - manufacturing base
stations, selling chipsets and pc cards and through licensing.

Flarion has four trials taking place- three are in Korea and the
fourth is with Nextel.

Verizon Wireless has reportedly sampled the technology, but no
public disclosures have been made about a formal trial. Although
Donahue "likes what he sees," he stresses that Flash OFDM needs to
prove that it can work in the real world. "There's been no demand
put on it. We don't know how it reacts under a load," says
Donahue. "These are the sorts of things we need to look at in our
lab and test.'

Flarion's biggest liability is lack of scale, says Brian Modoff,
chief wireless analyst at Deutsche Bank Alex. Although Flarion
insists the cost of its solution is far lower than competitive
technologies, it faces the prospect of locking in cut-rate deals
with carriers principally to demonstrate the technology's
commercial viability.

Nextel may also embrace the technology for another reason -
Flarion is not being actively courted by any other American
carrier and, similar to Nextel, seems devoted to blazing its own
trail. "For a player like Nextel, being like everyone else is not
high on their list," says Modoff.

http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDeta
il.jsp?id=48802&pageID=1#subart

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