TSMC to build Intel WiMAX chips - report

BIG PURE PLAY foundry TSMC will build WiMAX chips for Intel, the Taiwan Economic News reported. WiMAX is being touted as a major breakthrough which will connect places which could never connect before.
But if the reports are true, it may cause a fall out with TSMC's other customers, which include plucky little SIS and Via Technologies, as well as graphics firm Nvidia, which use its foundry facilities.
TSMC usually maintains when this sort of thing happens that the Chinese walls in its organisation prevent conflicts of interest, although if you speak to sources at the various vendors they do take a different view. It's not the first time Intel has used TSMC, according to the newspaper. It uses TSMC to make south bridge chips, the report claims.
The report makes the intriguing little point that Intel has not yet talked to Via about its 1333MHz front side bus technology. Today is a holiday in Taiwan.

Intel, Redline deploy mountain region WiMax network

US chip manufacturer Intel and Canadian wireless equipment firm Redline Communications have deployed a WiMax network in the mountainous region of Malinalco, 77km southwest of Mexico City, Redline said in a statement.

Redline's RedMAX AN-100U base station and SU-O outdoor broadband wireless subscriber unit is designed to overcome physical obstacles, higher mountain elevation and dense forest. The network will connect schools to the internet in Malinalco.

The deployment is part of Intel's World Ahead Program, which aims to improve education by empowering teachers and preparing students for success in the global economy through programs, resources and the application of advanced broadband wireless technology, the statement said.

Redline Communications designs and manufactures broadband wireless access solutions. The RedMAX family includes the first complete WiMax Forum Certified System.

Nokia Siemens in Deal for UK WiMax

Britain may be a step closer to a major deployment of WiMax in the country. Pipex Wireless, a joint venture of Intel and Pipex Communications, is already working with WiMax equipment provider Airspan on trials -- and it plans to also use equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks to create new commercial WiMax services in the United Kingdom.

Kyocera mobile WiMAX

Following the announcement in February 2007 of their successful test of a co-developed MIMO-enabled WiMAX Matrix-B PC Card, Kyocera Wireless and Runcom are demonstrating the incredible speeds and performance of this next-generation wireless protocol in cooperation with MobiTV, a streaming television service for mobile devices. With peak data speeds up to 20Mbps, mobile WiMAX can support high-bandwidth applications such streaming video and other data-intensive downloads. MobiTV will be streaming its mobile television service to a tablet PC using Kyocera's MIMO-enabled WiMAX PC card and WiMAX infrastructure provided by Runcom. Kyocera Wireless will also be using its WiMAX card to show multiple on-demand videos on plasma displays.

STC sees Red with WiMax deployment

by ArabianBusiness.com staff writer on Thursday, 05 April 2007 Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is deploying a WiMax network throughout Saudi Arabia, it said last week.
The state-owned operator said it has teamed up with Canadian vendor Redline Communications for the deployment and has already installed its RedMax products in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.
"STC is bringing broadband communications in Saudi Arabia to a new level. Our WiMax network will help us to deliver much-needed broadband access to IP-VPN in every city and community in the country," said Saud Bin Majid Al-Daweesh, president of STC, in a statement. "With the RedMax installation now well underway, STC is one of the first carriers to introduce WiMax forum-certified products and services to its customers."

Ericsson: 3G, WiMax auctions ought to take place this year

The Brazilian unit of Swedish telecoms equipment provider Ericsson is optimistic that Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel will launch auctions for 3G and WiMax licenses this year, Ericsson's director of technology and products Paulo Bernardocki told BNamericas.
Telecoms infrastructure suppliers have faced drying up revenues as most mobile operators have brought their networks up to date. For that reason, the industry is eagerly awaiting auctions for both 3G and WiMax for fresh revenue opportunities, Bernardocki said.
In the meantime, Ericsson is focusing on multimedia services and broadband internet, which it expects to account for 20-25% of its overall revenues in 2008 from 15-20% today.
"Ericsson has other products and infrastructure exports, but if no decision on 3G or WiMax is made this year, this will have a major impact on Ericsson's operations in Brazil," Bernardocki said.
Brazil's communications minister Hélio Costa was quoted by local newspapers this week as saying he expected Anatel to relaunch "as soon as possible" an auction for 3.5GHz and 10GHz spectrum licenses to provide WiMax services.
Federal accounts court TCU ordered the watchdog to suspend its plans to auction WiMax licenses last September saying it had detected irregularities in the bidding rules, such as the use of an outdated exchange rate.
Anatel is expected to decide in May which spectrum band is to be used for 3G services and has said it hopes to auction licenses by the end of the year.
Ericsson posted net revenues of 2.0bn reais (US$977mn) in 2006 from 2.4bn reais in 2005 in Brazil.

Warwick to pilot WiMAX broadband services

Warwick District Council working together with locally based National Grid Wireless, Pipex Wireless and Intel Solutions Services have announced a pilot of WiMAX broadband services.
The trial will involve three base stations in the Leamington Spa and Warwick area, and will deliver products including leased line replacement, broadband phone (known as voice over IP), home workers broadband and dedicated broadband connectivity using WiMAX.
Pipex is the UK’s first wireless solutions provider to launch WiMAX services. It is intended to initially deliver trial services to council employees and subsequently approach businesses and home-users in the Warwick area. The trial network will go live in spring 2007 and run for six months. Subject to a successful pilot, other towns and cities are planned for deployment by Pipex later in 2007.
Intel Solutions Services are working with the council providing support for the introduction of wireless and other technologies, and evaluating performance.
Mr Chris Elliott, Chief Executive, Warwick District Council, said: "Attracting the latest wireless broadband and voice services to the area is great news. We are looking to make the district a technologically advanced area to live and do business in. Working with Pipex Wireless on this trial and beyond is a vitally important step to achieve this aim."
Stephen Marshall, CEO National Grid Wireless, said, "We are pleased to be working with both Warwick District Council and Pipex Wireless to deliver WiMAX services in our home town. Our business is founded on the delivery of infrastructure and managed service solutions to the wireless and broadcast industry and we believe the roll out of wireless broadband networks will be complementary to the wide range of technologies already deployed by our organisation."
Mike Read, CEO, Pipex Wireless, adds, "Following the initial success of various trials, we are delighted to expand our WiMAX services into new towns and cities in the UK. Working with National Grid Wireless and Warwick District Council further develops our wireless capability and we are looking forward to more organisations, businesses and consumers using WiMAX."
On successful completion of the trial, Pipex Wireless intend to launch a public subscription service. It hoped to start this in the summer.

First WiMAX seminar in Bulgaria a success, more to follow

Sofia, Bulgaria March 2007 — Nexcom Bulgaria, the first telecom in Bulgaria to offer commercial WiMAX, has started an educational campaign about the technology to boost the level of awareness amongst large and medium businesses in the country. The first WiMAX seminar of the campaign was held in the beginning of March in Sofia. It was attended by large number of professionals from the financial, banking, construction, and insurance sectors as well as IT system integrators. The seminar program is entirely focused on the advantages and the future development of the WiMAX technology, business-oriented WiMAX services as well as demonstrations of available business solutions - telephony and broadband internet, Layer 2 and Layer 3 connectivity, MAN and VPN solutions.
Nexcom’s WiMAX network provides fast and cost effective coverage, broadband services in urban and suburban regions, even in remote locations with scarce infrastructure, last mile access to end users, and high-grade security provided by 3DES encryption. Besides voice and data services Nexcom also offers a broad range of telemetry applications such as video surveillance, public safety, utility companies’ data collection, etc.
According to participants, Nexcom’s first seminar was a success. An evaluation survey conducted after the event demonstrated strong interested in WiMAX- based services. "Business in Bulgaria needs reliable and secure broadband connectivity as well as IPVPNs and last mile access, WiMAX delivers each one of them. With our initiative Nexcom is proud to welcome the business to the broadband community", commented Emil Nikolov, CEO of Nexcom.

WiMAX equipment installed in Bulgarian ski resort Bansko

Nexcom Bulgaria, the local telecom operator, said it has provided a blanket WiMAX coverage in ski resort Bansko. Nexcom said it picked Bansko for the deployment of its pilot point-to-multipoint network for its compact urban development and because its telecom infrastructure was overdue for an upgrade. The complaint of the hotel owners was that the city's high-density buildings made for a spotty telecom coverage, said Nexcom marketing manager Milko Georgiev. The Nexcom WiMAX equipment installed in Bansko in late 2006 also provides coverage in nearby Dobrinishte, Bania and Razlog. The insufficient density of the network does not yet allow Nexcom to market its WiMAX services to end-consumers. Nexcom plans to reach 100% WiMAX coverage in Sofia by the beginning of the summer, up from 40% at present. The company provides WiMAX coverage also in Burgas, Plovdiv, Varna and along the Southern Black Sea coastline. All Bulgarian cities with over 50,000 population will go WiMAX by the end of 2007, said Georgiev. Mobiltel, the nation's dominant wireless telecom, provides WiMAX coverage in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna since 2006. The company has said it is ready to provide fixed voice services on WiMAX. Trans Telecom is another local telecom operator with a point-to-multipoint permit. The company started the rollout of its nationwide WiMAX network with coverage in Kardjali, Southern Bulgaria. Max Telecom, the 4th local company with a point-to-multipoint permit, announced in January it had contracted US-based broadband wireless access solutions provider Navini Networks will provide equipment for its mobile WiMAX products. No information is available on the progress the company is making on its WiMAX network.

Berkeley Varitronics Systems (BVS) Offers Free WiMAX Demo DVD

METUCHEN, New Jersey. -/April 3, 2007 - Wi-Fi Technology News/- Berkeley Varitronics Systems, Inc., the leader in Wi-Fi / Wi-MAX propagation analysis test equipment, has created a DVD demonstrating the use of wireless test transmitters, receivers and software for the deployment of the popular 2.5-2.7 GHz & 3.4-3.6 GHz WiMAX standards.

Berkeley is currently demonstrating this test instrument combo at the CTIA 2007 and IWCE Wireless shows this week but any interested engineers and technicians in the U.S. may receive this demo DVD right now for FREE.

The DVD is an NTSC (running time approximately 50 minutes) video featuring the Gator™ Class A Stimulus Transmitter, Coyote™ Dual Modular Receiver System and Sieve™ Data Conversion Software. Quicktime® and WMV® highlights are also currently posted for download on www.bvsystems.com.

Send complete mailing address (North America only) and contact information to BVS for your FREE copy of the WiMAX Combo Demo DVD today.

31 million in Asia use WiMAX equipment to access Internet

More than 31 million people in Asia will be using WiMax broadband wireless internet links within five years, according to new forecasts from the region. WiMax operators will be collecting revenues of $8bn per year from 31.4 million subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region by 2012, In-Stat predicts. "In emerging countries where current household broadband penetration rates are extremely low, governments have quickly built a pro-WiMax regulatory framework," said In-Stat analyst Victor Liu.

Pipex Uses NSN for WiMax

HELSINKI and LONDON -- Pipex Wireless and Nokia Siemens Networks have agreed to co-operate on WiMAX infrastructure and service development to expand the availability of commercial WiMAX services in the UK.
As one of the world’s leading infrastructure and services providers, Nokia Siemens Networks is well placed to assist Pipex Wireless in the development of future WiMAX services. Pipex Wireless will use Nokia Siemens Networks‘ equipment, services and networking expertise to widen its roll-out of WiMAX powered broadband wireless services nationwide. Nokia Siemens Networks’ WiMAX (802.16e-2005) solution is a highly cost-effective network infrastructure solution, enabling operators to deliver broadband wireless internet connectivity to their customers.

Mike Read, CEO of Pipex Wireless, says, "As we reach the next stage of our business, we are looking to work with strategic partners that share our vision of offering customers a ground-breaking WiMAX broadband experience. Nokia Siemens Networks has this vision and has the expertise and track record to help us build our business."

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to support Pipex Wireless in WiMAX. They are at the forefront of introducing high speed wireless broadband services powered by WiMAX technology into the UK," says Ari Lehtoranta, Head of Radio Access Networks at Nokia Siemens Networks.

"Pipex Wireless brings expertise in internet, broadband and technology innovation and Nokia Siemens Networks’ extensive experience in designing, deploying, and maintaining high quality networks globally will be invaluable to its future success."

Pipex Wireless and Nokia Siemens Networks are now working on equipment specification, network design and service definition in readiness for a pilot deployment during this year.

Aluminium enclosure for WiFi and WiMax outdoor solutions

Poynting Antennas designed the WLAN-A0035 aluminium enclosure to provide an easy and flexible way of securing electronics in an outdoor environment close to the receiving and transmitting antennas, so minimising the power loss in RF cabling.

The secure watertight and weatherproof enclosure comes standard with a cable gland suitable for cables from 4 mm to 7 mm in diameter. An RJ45 connector gland for CAT5 with two additional holes are provided to allow N9 (f) bulkhead connectors to emerge from inside the enclosure. A variety of N (f) bulkhead cable assemblies are available and can be purchased separately (for example N (f)-to-U.FL).

This product comes out with a universal electronics-pillar mounting kit to allow flexibility in securing a variety of electronics types. For easier and more routine mounting, standard mounting adaptor plates for common electronics types are separately available. Poynting can also design and provide custom mounting adaptor plates for specific needs. The cavity inside allows for electronics with dimensions up to 205 x 180 x 50 mm.

WiMAX equipment will be installed in Pune

Taking a leap over Bangalore and Hyderabad, Pune will become the first Indian city to have a high-speed wireless Internet network even before the Centre’s much-awaited spectrum policy is announced. The ambitious project, when complete, will enable people to access the Internet from anywhere in the city, without a cable, through their laptops or personal digital assistants (PDAs). The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is to implement WiMAX and Wi-Fi technologies to provide wireless Internet access to around 400 sq km of the city. The PMC has set aside around Rs 7 crore and it will take around one year to complete the project.

The ambitious Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) project announced by municipal commissioner Nitin Kareer last year took off on Monday for areas near Sambhaji Park and PMC headquarters. Termed Unwiring Pune, the project was jointly announced by global chip-maker Intel Corporation and PMC in March 2006 and was kick-started recently. Intel, along with Chennai-based Microsense, will establish infrastructure for a wireless communication network as technical advisors and service providers respectively covering the entire 280 sq km of this cultural center of Maharashtra in area including Deccan Gymkhana, Aundh, Baner and Model colony within four months and the entire city in the next 12-18 months, Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer said at the function to launch the project. Kareer said it was an attempt to provide easy internet access to citizens at all open spaces in the city at affordable rates. "Currently, the service will be provided free of cost, until it is extended to the 20 sq km when the project will be commercially launched at nominal user charges for which the modalities have to be worked out," Kareer said.

While Intel will provide design and planning support, Microsense will carry out network deployment. Microsense was involved in establishing a wireless Internet network at the airport here. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Intel Managing Director (South Asia) R Sivakumar, Pune Mayor Rajlaxmi Bhosale and others will flag off the project. The technology used will be Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, commonly known as WiMAX, and wireless fidelity or wi-fi. WiMAX is claimed to be the most cost-efficient way of building wireless data networks and a means to link people over large distances for "last mile" connectivity and bridging the digital divide. However, deployment of WiMax faces delays as the Central government is yet to announce its spectrum policy, which will allot bandwidth for high-speed connectivity.

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the chief guest for the function, said the project initiated by PMC would be useful to all sections of the society and professionals from all fields. The wireless connectivity will surely help boost these fields further," Pawar said.

Reef Point introduces WiMax IP Border Architecture

The FMC Border Architecture, reference architecture, has been introduced by Reef Point Systems (Reef Point), a provider of convergence gateway platforms and solutions for fixed-mobile convergence (FMC). Reef Point said the FMC Border Architecture enables service providers to overcome FMC deployment challenges and deliver quality assured, secure multimedia services across IP-based networks. It claimed the architecture addresses IP access networks including 3G Mobile (3GPP IMS), Wi-Fi, WiMAX, DSL/FTTX, Cable and Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) over Wi-Fi.

FMC Border Architecture incorporates three main elements including a consolidated, standards-compliant specification of security, mobility and QoS functions for all main FMC networks. It offers a policy-based definition of session and flow border functions to enable service providers to plan FMC border management rules, to include network, user, core and application polices.

The architecture also provides an FMC implementation reference model, incorporating network deployment topologies for FMC border consolidation and an FMC network roadmap to help service providers move to a single all-IP core network.