Wifi to allow Pakistani WiMAX operators much-needed mobility: President WiMAX Forum

Declan Byrne is President of the WiMAX Forum, the global approving body for WiMAX standards. He has over 12 years of experience in the wireless industry and has been associated with telecom firms like AT&T and Airspan in strategic roles. Declan also served as a diplomat abroad for the US State Department for 10 years. He is a graduate of the University of San Francisco, California.
Declan was in Islamabad last week to preside over the WiMAX South Asia Conference 2012. Following are the excerpts from his elaborate discussion with BR Research.
BR Research: Please tell our readers about the organisation and functions of the WiMAX Forum.
Declan Byrne: The WiMAX Forum is an industry-led, not-for-profit organisation that certifies and promotes the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless products based upon IEEE Standard 802.16. The WiMAX Forum's primary goal is to accelerate the adoption, deployment and expansion of WiMAX technologies across the globe while facilitating roaming agreements, sharing best practices within our membership and certifying products. The Forum has over 170 members, which include the majority of WiMAX operators, component vendors and equipment vendors in the communications ecosystem.
Various working groups at the WiMAX Forum design the compliance specifications for the vendors for interoperable equipment. As President of the Forum, I spend a lot of time talking to regulators, about industry issues such as spectrum management, roaming agreements and replication of best practices. The Forum provides a unique, neutral platform to bring operators together, who are usually competing tooth and nail in the market, to discuss areas of common ground.
BRR: Given that various wireless technologies are already competing for the small broadband market in Pakistan, what promise do you see for WiMAX technology in Pakistan?
DB: There is a lot of potential for WiMAX in Pakistan. Pakistan has the highest WiMAX penetration in the world, with nearly one in three wireless subscribers using the WiMAX connection. This technology holds the key for Pakistan where less than seven percent of households have internet connectivity. I believe that WiMAX is the most ideally suited internet delivery platform for developing countries like Pakistan because it offers the operators a relatively cheaper and easily scalable deployment method to serve the country's digital needs.
In Pakistan, this industry is in its infancy, and the four WiMAX operators are trying to build a sustainable ecosystem for broadband diffusion. Consumers in Pakistan have shown their preference for wireless connectivity, with over 29 percent of the market share being taken by the WiMAX operators.
BRR: What is it that WiMAX can deliver which other technologies can not?
DB: The WiMAX networks have the capacity to offload heavy data usage, and we have seen this in internet-savvy countries like Pakistan. In Malaysia, for instance, the average data consumption is 10GB per month, and this is on WiMAX networks. Due to their large capacity, WiMAX networks offer higher usage, at better internet speed, and the user experience does not suffer, as is the case with other networks. Back in the US, I had an 'unlimited' data plan on AT&T's network. Whenever the download crossed 2GB, they would throttle the speed down to 256Kbps, and the so called 'unlimited download' would be offered at that reduced speed.
In recent years, we have seen tremendous growth in volumes. We went from 13.5 million WiMAX subscriptions in 2010 to 25 million in 2011, and we will probably be at 30 million right now. Demand is growing, supply continues and volumes are increasing.
BRR: Why is the focus of Pakistani WiMAX operators almost entirely on major metropolis?
DB: Part of this is normal business strategy, much like the GSM technology which got a foothold in the urban centres first and then penetrated into the rural areas. The potential uptake for WiMAX in rural areas is huge and cannot be ignored. Reducing the tariffs is a challenge, not just for the operators but also the vendors and other suppliers. At the Forum, we are debating amongst ourselves whether reducing the tariffs would stimulate the WiMAX uptake and help the operators get to the bottom.
BRR: But still, for how long can the WiMAX operators stay relevant with their plain vanilla internet service to just the households?
DB: There are ways in which WiMAX operators can compete and differentiate. Firstly, I am really interested in Wifi as an extension of WiMAX. Japan's is a very developed ICT market, where KDDI is providing mobile internet coverage by installing 100,000 Wifi hotspots across the country, all of them backhauled with WiMAX. I feel that the Wifi would allow the Pakistani WiMAX operators the much-needed mobility and edge on their services. And I think they are working on something to this effect.
I am really bullish on other prospects, too. Various new market segments are opening up for WiMAX, which have the potential to drive massive volumes. Businesses such as utilities, aviation, oil and gas, public safety, transportation, high-speed rail, and machine to machine applications, are now realising the benefits of WiMAX for their connectivity and other technological needs.
In Pakistan, there are power outages every thirty minutes, which is sort of a big opportunity for WiMAX operators. The utilities sector can cooperate with the WiMAX operators, to find solutions for things like censor management and optimization of load management. And I know that Pakistani operators are talking to them.
BRR: Can you please elaborate how these industries are benefiting from WiMAX in other countries?
DB: Utility companies are adopting WiMAX in countries like the US, Canada and Australia. Moreover, the aviation industry world-wide has adopted WiMAX as their standard for terrestrial communication. In a time span of 10 to 15 years, every airport in the world will have deployed WiMAX networks. When an aircraft lands, it will connect via a WiMAX link over 5.1 GHZ spectrum to the tower. Public safety agencies in Japan and the US are now relying on WiMAX. We are committed to winning the South Korean market where WiMAX is now being looked as the technology for public safety functions. That would give this technology a greater foothold in the region.
These segments are non-traditional, and non-standard, but the sheer size of potential volumes gives the operators this assurance that the technology is here to stay, and that there is an ecosystem of buyers and suppliers. This will hopefully continue innovation as well.
BRR: Pakistani telecommunication scene is warming up for a new segment of high speed mobile broadband following the 3G spectrum auction. How would that impact the WiMAX operators?
DB: I know that the Pakistani mobile network operators are anticipating 3G auction soon. However, the MNOs are principally architected to deliver mobile voice. I believe that they are going to have a hard time selling data to a data hungry population, because their networks would get increasingly overwhelmed. When the iPhone was introduced in the US on AT&T's network, the customer experience was horrible. They started downloading videos, made video & Skype calls, etc. and AT&T's network could not handle it.
BRR: So you are saying that it will be business as usual?
DB: The 3G data networks would be huge differentiators for MNOs, which quite frankly the WiMAX operators cannot match, But I guarantee you that when the 3G networks are built, they will oversell the expectations and under deliver on the promise. We have seen this in the most developed markets like the United States, where subscribers were let down, although very expensive 3G networks were deployed by the operators. So much so that they were getting only a 128Kbps service on pretty good networks. The reality is that 3G is not architected to deliver higher broadband speeds of 1Mbps and above.
The definition of broadband in the US is now 5Mbps and above, which is a very high number. In Pakistan, broadband is defined as 512Kbps and above. I am positive that the real broadband experience cannot be had on 3G networks. The normal mobile broadband speed, ranging between 128Kbps and 256kbps, is okay for browsing, but not for other data-intensive applications. Yes, an MNO can meet the consumers' expectations of high speed mobile broadband, but will it be able to afford installing and running 50,000 base stations in Pakistan? I don't think so.
BRR: Can there be an operational alliance between the WiMAX operators and MNOs?
DB: The paradigm for mutual co-operation between WiMAX operators and MNOs is already happening. In the US, ClearWire, the national WiMAX operator, has built an alliance with Sprint, the third-ranked MNO. The two operators collaborated to build the tower infrastructure and shared the cost of the network for equal benefit. ClearWire holds the spectrum and wholesales the service to Sprint. In Japan, KDDI, the cellular operator, and U2C, a data service operator on WiMAX, have hammered out a similar arrangement.
I don't really know if such an arrangement can be executed in the Pakistani marketplace. However, collaboration would be a very good proposition when it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive for the operators to run so many base stations. So I think there may be a commonality of purpose in Pakistan between the future 3G operators and the WiMAX operators. In the long run, MNOs would need the capacity of WiMAX networks.
BRR: Where do you see the future of WiMAX technology?
DB: There is no question in my mind that eventually the MNOs would deploy LTE advanced technology and deliver to their customers a 1Mbps to 2Mbps bandwidth. Though, it will happen in different timelines and across different geographies. In such a scenario, the WiMAX operators need to ask themselves as to where the niches are. As I mentioned earlier, there is a tremendous market for non-standard solutions, and that is precisely why the WiMAX community needs to be conscious of who they are, what they can deliver and to whom.