Via Wi-Fi Networking News comes the hint that Craig McCaw is back hunting in the US. The tea leaves in the bottom of my cup say this will be a broadband wireless 802.20 play. Nextel’s concurrent limited deployment of a Flarion OFDM network will, in the colorful words of one colleague, prove to be an “oh my God moment” for the wireless industry. The difference compared to what we have now is like that between monochrome and color TV. Combined with the technology difficulties of W-CDMA for 3G elsewhere in the world, this will be a hot story. And suddenly we’ll have a pervasive low-latency, reasonably symmetric, packet-friendly broadband network. Vonage for wireless, anyone?
Posted by Martin Geddes at 05:58 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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You neglect to note that McCaw has a substantial investment in NextNet Wireless. McCaw won't wait for 802.20; he learned the value of early entrance to a market with proprietary equipment if necessary. NextNet gear can do mobility and VOIP quite well; it's been tested thoroughly in Mexico City in MVSNet; going national there this year, with announced national deployments in Philipines and Brazil.
Posted by: at February 9, 2004 11:10 PM