A Journey to the Levant
Airspan (NASDAQ:AIRN) stock is up 69% in one day.
Looking at the charts, it is quite obvious that today’s PR of Airspan Well positioned to Extend Market Leadership in U.S. Rural is the reason.
Airspan stock was at 0.14 until 11:48, 16 minutes after the PR was published, and 9 minutes after I received an E-mail notification. Which means, if you were a day trader, you had enough time to analyze, place the orders and watch your money grow.
Alvarion has just released plans to deploy Mobile WiMAX in the DRC (Congo).
Not only good news for Alvarion ($4.5 Million contract), but better news for Congo and Africa. Although most Mobile WiMAX investments are seeking the Big Money of Tier 1 Deployments, I love to read a bout WiMAX deployments in Africa and other developing countries.
As much as I will enjoy using UQ Communications WiMAX network in Japan, WiMAX is the perfect technology for deploying Internet and Voice services in developing markets, in places where traditional telephony was never deployed.
Alvarion claims that the BreezeMAX 2500 received WiMAX Forum 3.5GHz Certification.
However, it does not appear in the WiMAX Forum Product Showcase.
I wonder who is responsible to this glitch? Alvarion marketing team or WiMAX Forum Ceritification lab?
Sequans Communications has introduced it’s newset chip, the SQN1210 in Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress.
The SQN1210 supports in a single Dye:
Sequans also claim the new chip has better power consumption and better performance. It is also reported that Zyxel has adopted the new chip and will use it in a tiny USB device.
Zyxel is working with Sequans for a long time, and is deploying CPEs in Sprint Network with the Sequans SQN1130.
As I reported in UQ Communications Data Cards and Chip Vendors , UQ Communications UD01SS is actually Korean Modacom‘s device, using GCT Semi chipset.
None of UQ Communications devices support MAC OS or Linux, which caused discontent in the Japanese technical community (Early Adopters and Apple Fans).
But when checking Modacom website for similar WiBRO devices, they do support MAC OS, which makes me think Shinsei Corporation or UQ Communications didn’t want to deal with the complexity of supporting Operating Systems other than Windows (XP, Vista) at this time.
OKI, a Japanese Company apparently develop WiMAX systems.
Why “apparently”?
It does seem OKI have certified a USB device, but trying to understand their Product Portfolio can be a “bit” difficult.
OKI’s English WiMAX Page:
Now, one would say OKI do not plan to market their WiMAX Products outside Japan.
The Japanese page is not much better:
In a previous post, I have reviewed the data cards and Chipsets used by UQ WiMAX trial. UQ and Japanese companies in general usually insist on certification. Therefore, I decided to check the certification status of the data cards.
NEC Access Technica certified both the PCMCIA card and USB in January.
As for Shinsei Corp, there is no certification as they rely on Modacom (the actual Korean manufacturer of the devices) . Modacom has also certified both the Express Card, and the USB.
Confusing a bit, is the fact that the Modacom Express Card Certification page shows a USB device. Someone has mixed up the images:
UQ Communications business model has always been about MVNOs.
As UQ WiMAX trial beginns and deployment details start to unfold, MVNOs start to line-up.
VON reports that Motorola is hoping that WiMAX success and new Android bases smartphone will help the telecom giant getting out of the red.
The report also claims that:
The first handsets will debut in the fourth quarter, he (co-CEO Sanjay Jha) noted.
OK, it is time for me to do some thinking:
If first handsets will debut in the fourth quarter, when can we expect to see revenues?
As previously reported, UQ communications will start Mobile WiMAX trial on the 26th of February.
Since I am familiar with the WiMAX technology and Chipset vendors, I decided to research the devices to be used during the trial and Chipset vendors selected by UQ and it’s suppliers.
UQ has currently two suppliers:
1) Shinsei Corporation – Supplying the UD01SS USB and the UD02SS Express Card. Accoring to UQ website, these products are actually from a Korean company – Modacom. Modacom has a complete portfolio of devices for the Korean WiBRO network (WiBRO is almost identical to WiMAX). These devices use GCT WiMAX chipset. This screen capture displays device driver information, which clearly indicates GCT.
2) NEC Access Technica – Supplying the UD-01NA USB and UD-02NA PCMCIA Card type. NEC uses Beceem chipset.
Missing from the list are:
1) Samsung – which supplied the data cards to Sprint’s XOHM WiMAX deployment in Baltimore.
2) Sequans Communications – which power Zyxel’s CPE for the same Xohm deployment.
3) Intel – As Intel Capital invested in UQ, I am certain we will see Intel powered WiMAX laptop within a few months.
I cannot avoid mentioning the UQ connection manager, which in my opinion looks very similar to the KT connection Manager. (And I must admit that also Airspan’s MiMAX USB, which I developed, had the same look and feel).
