Sprint Stands Alone

Now that Verizon Wireless has selected Long Term Evolution as its fourth-generation platform, and if Sprint continues with its WiMAX fourth-generation network platform, prospects for CDMA are dim in the U.S. market.

Of course, there always is the possibility that Sprint might reverse course and abandon WiMAX. But Sprint Nextel at the moment really stands alone in the platform area. It runs the Nextel iDEN network that no other major carrier supports and CDMA-based 3G that Verizon says it will abandon.

It is hard to imagine T-Mobile adopting anything other than LTE, so it appears CDMA is at a deadend in the U.S. market.

Verizon to Dump CDMA for 4G

Verizon Wireless will base its fourth-generation mobile broadband network on LTE – Long Term Evolution – the technology developed within the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards organization and based on GSM.

The selection of LTE means Verizon wants to align itself with the scale opportunities the global standard will provide, rather than extending its existing CDMA platform.

Verizon and Vodafone have a coordinated trial plan for LTE that begins in 2008. Trial suppliers include Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia-Siemens, and Nortel. Discussions with device suppliers have expanded beyond traditional suppliers such as LG, Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson, as consumer electronics companies anticipate embedded wireless functionality in their future products.

Users won't see 4G for several years, however, so there's no need to worry about existing CDMA equipment. The decision does call into question how much actual developer interest there will be in Verizon's new "open" CDMA platform, however.

Has Muni Wi-Fi Missed the Window?

Municipal Wi-Fi arguably had a market window within which it had to get traction or lose out to cable companies and especially telcos. With EarthLink now backing out of the remaining deals it originally negotiated, that window could slam shut. That isn't to say there might not be some niches it could fill, but they will be smaller niches.

The higher end part of the fully mobile market will be able to buy fourth generation mobile services, broadband based on 700 MHz spectrum, WiMAX and 3G broadband services. The tethered part of the market will simply find cable modem, Digital Subscriber Line and fiber to home services too attractive to ignore as well. The out of office portion of the market increasingly can use T-Mobile hotspots, hotel Wi-Fi and airport Wi-Fi.

Clearwire and satellite broadband are going to make more sense in most rural markets, though independent ISPs continue to offer basic tethered access using Wi-Fi technologies adapted for more focused line of sight deployment.

Wi-Fi had to get into place before WiMAX arrived, and it looks like it simply is too late to be a sizable mass market access opportunity. That isn't to say hotspots are not a business at all; simply that it is a niche.

That said, sizable niches do exist for providers of satellite broadband in some segments of the market. WildBlue, ViaSat, Gilat and HughesNet prove that the niche exists. And Spaceway might someday create additional niches in the smaller enterprise market as well. Wi-Fi, though perhaps not of the muni variety, might continue to provide such a niche.

DoCoMo 4G: 300 Mbps to your Mobile

NTT DoCoMo is about to embark on an ambitious project that provides cellphone users the ability to achieve speeds of up to 300 Mbps on their handsets by the time 2009 rolls around. That, plus at&t's new positioning as a wireless company with landline assets, plus the fact that global "voice account" installed base and growth are killing landlines, has to be disquieting for lots of us who grew up on the wireline side of the business. Wireless is going to keep changing things more than some might like.

This has to be Good for 3G, 4G

According to a recent survey of about 1,000 enterprises by FreeForm Dynamics, mobile connectivity for PCs appears to be more "mission critical" than remote email access, at least in some markets. North Americans love their Blackbery and other mobile email access, to be sure. But mobile PC access arguably is more important. Forced to choose just one, I'd have to vote for mobile PC access as well, either 3G or 4G.