Jackson Hole, Wy. gets first certified mobile WiMAX network

Jackson Hole, Wy., is the first city in the U.S. to get a certified mobile WiMAX 2.5 GHz network. DigitalBridge Communications (DBC) officially launched service today in the popular resort area using Alvarion’s equipment.

DBC’s goal is to bring WiMAX to underserved rural communities. It has fixed broadband wireless up and running in a number of markets in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and will work to upgrade those markets to standardized mobile WiMAX in the 2.5 GHz band within the next year.

Greg Daily, president of Alvarion’s North American business, said DBC and other operators looking to target rural markets will benefit from the economies of scale of Sprint, which has ushered in the mobile WiMAX device ecosystem, and the new Clearwire, which is folding in Sprint later this year. “Think about the ecosystem launching and upwards of almost 100 devices that will come out at the end of the year. We’re starting to see customers in small in places like Montana and anywhere else in the world being able to access to architecture like this,” Daily told FierceBroadbandWireless.

DBC’s primary business model will be selling subscriptions to businesses and consumers in the Jackson Hole area. It will also look to institute a visitor-based model whereby visitors to the tourist area can buy a daily or weekly subscription.

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Seidenberg wants all of Verizon Wireless

Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg wants out of the company’s Verizon Wireless joint venture with Vodafone, telling the Financial Times that since Verizon is “doing 100 percent of the work,” he wants 100 percent of the earnings.

Vodafone and Verizon’s relationship has been a tense one at best since the two joined their U.S. wireless assets eight years ago, with Vodafone keeping a 45 percent stake. Verizon last tried to buy out Vodafone in 2006.

While Seidenberg said he doesn’t expect a sale to happen overnight, he in putting more pressure on Vodafone to sell, especially with Vittorio Colao stepping in as new Vodafone CEO in July.

Analysts say Vodafone’s ownership stake now is worth about $60 billion, up $10 billion since 2006.

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WiMAX Forum announces long-awaited Wave 2 certification

It’s the moment the WiMAX industry has been waiting for. The WiMAX Forum today announced certification for Wave 2 products using MIMO in the 2.5 GHz band. The announcement includes four base stations and six mobile-station terminals operating in the 2.5 GHz band–the spectrum the new Clearwire will be launching nationwide 2.5 GHz mobile station modules passed the mandatory MIMO testing protocols.

The eight companies not surprisingly include Intel, Motorola, Samsung, Beceem, Sequans, Alvarion, Airspan, and Zyxel. Alvarion, Motorola, Samsung and Sequans each received the WiMAX Forum Certified Seal of Approval for a 2.5 GHz base station. Airspan, Beceem, Intel, Samsung, Sequans and Zyxel each received the WiMAX Forum Certified Seal of Approval for a 2.5 GHz mobile station module.

Ed Iges, co-chair of the WiMAX Forum’s certification working group, told FierceWireless that certification for MIMO for 2.5 GHz products sets the stage for the quick implementation of future profiles. As such, the forum announced that it will begin to accept certification applications for 3.5 GHz equipment during the third quarter, with testing to begin in the fourth quarter and certification completed for those products before the end of the year.

The WiMAX Forum estimates that more than 100 Mobile WiMAX products will be certified by the end of 2008, and by 2011 more than 1,000 products will undergo Mobile WiMAX certification. The WiMAX Forum said it plans to stay ahead of the demand for certification with a robust global lab infrastructure, including six WiMAX Forum partner labs that are now open and ready to accept products for certification testing in China, Korea, Spain, and the U.S., along with two labs in Taiwan, ADT and TTC/CS. The WiMAX Forum plans to open two more certification labs by the end of 2008 in India and Japan and an additional lab in Brazil in 2009 in order to support the anticipated growing demands in those regions.

Wave 2 certification has taken some time to achieve because of the complexities associated with MIMO technology. “The challenge has been getting MIMO on the uplink,” noted Iges. “It’s not easy to certify having multiple scenarios. What happens on MIMO is that we are adding more stress to the base station.”

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Study secretly monitored cell phone users

A research study conducted by Northeastern University secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the U.S. through their cell phone usage. Researchers used cell phone towers to track users’ locations when they made calls or sent and received text messages. In another set of records, researchers used cell phones with tracking devices in them and got records for their locations every two hours over a week’s time.

The FCC says that this type of non-consensual tracking is illegal in the U.S. The study co-author Albert-Lazlo Barabasi said that researchers didn’t know what phone numbers were involved and randomly chose the 100.000 people to provide an extra layer of anonymity to the study.

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