This ruling is an important step in the continued evolution of the industry and is helping pave the way to 4G.
I invited John Hoadley, Nortel’s newly appointed Vice President of 4G Business and Ecosystem Development, to share his views. John has been with Nortel for more than 18 years in a wide spectrum of roles, including as leader of Nortel’s Wireless Technology Lab (WTL), which has been largely responsible for Nortel’s leadership in OFDM and MIMO – the foundations for all 4G wireless technologies.
Congratulations to the FCC once again for its leadership in opening new spectrum to pave the way to the future.
Over the last 12 years, the FCC has been the global leader in making attractive spectrum available to new and existing wireless carriers. By my count, the FCC has auctioned off more than 450 MHz worth of attractive spectrum at 700 MHz, 1.7/2.1 GHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz. 700 MHz is one of the top prizes for any wireless carrier because its great propagation characteristics allow for large rural cell sites and good in-building coverage.
Looking back, the long-term impact of the auction of 120 MHz of spectrum at 1.9 GHz in 1995-1996 has been impressive:
- The US has one of the most competitive wireless markets in the world. Look in any paper, on TV, on the Web. US consumers have lots of wireless choices.
- Each U.S. wireless user chalks up more than 800 minutes of wireless voice each month (source: Pyramid Research, 1Q07), far outpacing any other country.
- Innovation and creativity are thriving. Blackberrys are ubiquitous. Early high-speed data offerings, such as Verizon’s V CAST and Sprint's Power Vision, are gaining traction.
So, what is next as carriers start to introduce new services at 700 MHz, 1.7/2.1 GHz and 2.5 GHz? 4G, starting with WiMAX 802.16e. Success in 4G will occur when consumers and devices are connected — in fact, when they are hyperconnected — to an affordable wireless broadband network. Low cost and convenience will allow users to have full access to the web and applications wherever they and their laptop, game device, MP3 player, etc. are.
There are 3 essential ingredients that will make 4G work: embedded silicon, OFDM – MIMO, and adequate spectrum.
- Embedded silicon in laptops, game devices, etc. allows all of the consumer electronic devices in our lives to be conveniently hyperconnected at a low cost. Companies like Intel, Qualcomm and TI will make this happen.
- OFDM-MIMO standards, along with other advanced antenna techniques, improve the spectral efficiency (the number of bits/Hz that can be sent) by 4 or more times what is possible today. If wireline networks are any indication, users want lots of bits (throughput) for video, images and music; therefore, the improved spectral efficiency of OFDM-MIMO is essential.
- Adequate spectrum gives the capacity and scalability needed to deliver 4G.
Again, congratulations to the FCC. You have done your part by continuing to deliver spectrum in a proactive, timely fashion to the market. Using the spectrum to make 4G a reality is now up to us.
August 2, 2007 9:24 pm
August 3rd, 2007 at 3:37 pm by Shelly
When do we get to congratulate Nortel? Here we have yet another blog post with pontification about what’s happening in the 4G world without ANY view of what Nortel is doing about it. Is Nortel a spectator or a player?
Your competitors talk about what’s happening in the industry in the context of what they’re doing. Nortel behaves like an academic insitution and feels a need to educate us all on what will make 4G work. We get it. It isn’t complicated. We only want to know three things from Nortel in the context of 4G:
1) You’ve opted out of 3G. How do you compete with the installed 3G players? Are you counting on rip and replace?
2) What is your focus in 4G? Where will you play and why will you win?
3) What is your high level roadmap? When should we expect to see your 4G business take off?
Lots of other questions but until these fundamentals are answered, you don’t have a 4G business so the rest don’t matter.
C’mon Nortel, step up and tell us what you’re doing, not what’s happening in the industry. We can get that anywhere.
August 5th, 2007 at 1:01 am by Paul Stevens
Although I have read some harsh criticism from you on other blogs,yu do bring to light a very important point.
Nortel has a good chance to win in this market,however the customer needs to see a straight line right through from ambitions to product shipment.
Demonstrating a straight line to the customer let’s them know that Nortel is fully committed to 4G,something that they have lacked in other technologies in the past.
Time to step up to the plate!
August 7th, 2007 at 10:00 am by Bill Stock
August 8th, 2007 at 1:59 pm by Dan
Wi-fi is more powerful, but every study I have seen is that the range is limited to about 100 meters. Wi-fi is not mobile (no handoff) until 802.11r, if then.
At the moment at least, I think Wi-fi is complementary not competitive.
Now, can Nortel make headway in a complementary technology without “being there” already? I don’t know but it will be harder.
What about MBWA you say? I don’t know enough about it to say. What has been done since October? I know it is *highly* political with John Roese’s former company slugging it out with Qualcomm/Flarion. I think it’s a long time coming though the courts though.
I think based on recent decisions (which I don’t think are necessarily bad) it will be a bit longer between now and profit.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:20 pm by many
August 8th, 2007 at 11:41 pm by Paul Stevens
Point taken.
However, I have been impressed by things John Roese has written and I have come to believe that he has influenced policy and direction in a positive way at nortel. True, I am measuring him along side of his predecessors, who I think were mostly cutouts. There are still a lot of things wrong at nortel and one person can’t fix everything, but some technical leadership (rather than marketing hype) can go a long way toward finding the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have to wonder where nortel might be if Roese had been around in 2001.
Would nortel retreat been more orderly rather than a market rout with situational “musical chair” layoffs of some very talented people? Would some of these key design people still be around rather than some of the management sharks? Would the company have been more focused on the future rather than retreating to their comfort zone?
The corrupt accounting would still have distracted the markets, but would the product portfolio be in better shape? Would there have been a more scientific approach to success and failure with lessons learned post mortems that are shared internally and acted upon without finger pointing? Would the MBAs still be making decisions like putting ads that mention explosions in airports?
In any case the current situation is wholly a creation of that management team in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. It is perpetuated by this management team (with a few notable exceptions) that do not understand the essentials of nortel any more than they understand the essential characteristics of the market and customers they are trying to sell to.
I think as Rouse has pointed out time is running out. There is a sense of urgency to some of his comment. I agree there are a couple of key regulatory and technology changes in the wind that are going to move the market very soon. There is a dearth of available talent out there and it is about to get *much* worse. There is a whole lot of hostility toward nortel out there amongst former employees that either work for customers or competitors.
The current wave of consolidation of service providers is almost over in certain parts of the world markets. Customers are looking for ways to differentiate themselves. Enterprises are understanding that communications is part and parcel of their products competitiveness and looking for communications vendors that understand the technology needs of their business. Both market sectors need more agile custom development and vendor participation/hosting. Both market sectors need more cohesion of process and solutions. Too much bad software is getting out (not just nortel). Labs are hopelessly overloaded and there needs to be better more agile prototyping and testing both internally and externally. There are natural partnerships out there (not non-exclusive showcase partnerships with big names like microsoft) that are not being explored.
Nortel marketing quite plainly sucks and that has been discussed to death already.
Unfortunately to a large degree, things at nortel still work by accident rather than by design.
Nortel needs to address these essential problems and opportunities in a very honest and creative ways. I think Roese is capable of facilitating that dialog
August 9th, 2007 at 9:16 am by many
I was also very encouraged by John Roese when he arrived because he was a rarity in the executive ranks - he understands technology. Other than Pillipe Morin and Peter Carbone, who was the acting CTO when Roese was hired, I can’t point to anything but ‘cutouts’ in the Nortel executive ranks (to use your term).
However, I’ve become less generous in my views of Roese as late because I don’t see any credible signs of change. Lots (!) of words, very little change. The only exception that comes to mind is the claim that Nortel is now spending more on 4G development. But still no strategy, plan, or roadmap, which is leading me to conclude that either the sitting presidents are ignoring Roese, or Roese and/or the larger Nortel leadership team are failing to execute.
Bottom line - the enthusiam generated by words is growing thin. Plans and actions are needed to regenerate it. I hope your optimism is a sign of things to come because Nortel still has a lot of potential…at least for a littlle while longer.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:28 pm by Paul Stevens
What does the nortel CTO organization think of the nokia chip announcement yesterday? Sure looks good for broadcom and STMicro. Not so good for qualcomm and TI. Qualcomms general council Lou Lupin’s resignation today may finally spell the end of qualcomms hold on wireless CDMA technologies.
All in all I think this is a very healthy development for the market and for the concept of “hyperconnectivity”.
Probably not so much of an impact on 4G (unless I missed something?). It may be an effort to make 3G a commodity driving demand for faster rates?
It will also be interesting to see if this development simplifies or makes more complex the protocol stacks at the edge. (trackback to the “IP unifying force or mask of complexity” posts)
I also wonder if nokia’s purchase of twango and subsequent launch of its own social networking site indicates a very basic shift in strategy for nokia?
Any thoughts?
August 13th, 2007 at 7:51 pm by many