You may be wondering why I am harping so on this search technology. It doesn't have that much daily direct impact on broadband wireless for me. But search to me is what has driven the web for a long time. Google has been the only real rock star (in my mind) to survive the dotcom fallout. I read in Friday's Wall Street Journay where eBay, Microsoft and Yahoo are collaborating because they fear Google might cannibalize their business. So really innovative new search technology is a big deal I think. It could impact wireless, especially cellular in a big way. People have no patience, if they could get useful info in one click on a phone, suddenly the Internet makes sense in that application. This is a huge deal for WiMax, especially mobile WiMax. So let me catch you up. You will recall I have blogged on a company called Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. a couple of times already. Well, there are a lot of people at MIT who have been working on wireless technologies of all sorts. And this one I found is just one of them. Well, here is another along the same lines. It appears that Nokia is partnering with MIT on this new type of search in a big, big way. Are they possibly the firm who bought 5th Dimension? I don't know. As a public company it and Google would have to disclose a purchase I would assume. I didn't see anything on either. Maybe a purchase through a subsidiary would be harder to find? Not my specialty and I don't have that much free time. I did "Google" (and what is the irony of that huh?) some of the other papers cited in Fuller's Thesis and that is some interesting stuff. One paper by Wesley Chan is based on GIS locates of APs (as I understand it from a quick browse). I am not certain if this is his personal website or not. But it does reference him writing one of the most downloaded client applications ever (his words). Can you say the Google Toolbar? I have one at the top of my screen. So is all of this coincidence? Maybe. Heck, even probably. The MIT genius community can't be that big after all. Most likely Fuller drew on Chan's research as others have since probably drawn on theirs. The Nokia project may have no relationship to either and then again it might be influenced by it. What do I know conclusively from all this? Not a whole lot. Just supposition. A Thesis is public domain. Patents however mean a bit more. I am getting the sense that we might be on the cusp of some really radical new technologies that will draw on wireless very heavily to really affect change in our lives. One was the tunable RF chip that a 5th Dimension advisor's company is working on. Others are these search technologies. I've been reading Fuller's thesis a bit more and I think I have a grasp of what it is a bit better. It seems the first main goal is to reduce clicks to consistently under 3. That sounds about right to me for a portable handheld device holder. Much more and they give up or find a phone book to look for ads. I recently saw where one search engine (Yahoo I think) offers actual video driving directions from one site to another. Cool, cool stuff. That all REQUIRES broadband to work well. And especially wireless broadband. I think this will really impact WiMax a lot. If I hear more I will let you know. Maybe the company will call me back or drop me a note. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I read a really good article in the Wall Street Journal from April 11th by Amy Schatz and Amol Sharma about the potential change by the FCC to a blind bidding process. WSJ requires a subscription. Here is a link to a different piece. This particular spectrum range appears pretty useful. It was formerly a Defense Department asset. The ranges are: 1710 to 1755 MHz and 2110 to 2155. There are 1122 licenses slated to be auction. So good penetration and good bandwidth capacity. Nice tradeoff. The big talk though is that the FCC will keep blind the names of all bidders through each round—only showing the dollar amounts. Obviously the first goal is to maximize bidding. But theoretically at least, it could prevent cooperation between carriers. Will it work? If there are no leaks maybe? The Federal Government never has leaks does it?

    If you will recall Monday I blogged about this stealth (sort of anyway) search company called Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking, Inc. Well the company's site says it was sold anonymously (one supposes privately). If you will recall too I thought the technology was really innovative. First, it is optimized for wireless networks—a big plus. Also, it kind of operates like Google in reverse: instead of the end user looking for information, the information acts to find the end-user. Cool stuff. I think it could revolutionize the Broadband Wireless business especially on the advertising side. And more importantly the handset side for WiMax and Cellular providers. I mean people haven't used the Internet a whole lot with handsets because it is slow and takes a lot of time to get anything. Plus search takes a bunch of clicks usually. So this stuff seems an attempt to take a form of AI and get a useful answer in one click based on where you are at what time. Well, all very interesting.    In the company overview one of the advisors is with Wilson Sonsini, which is the big Silicon Valley law firm that took Apple and Google public. Okaaaayyyyy. Most of the rest are pretty prominent people too. Another advisor, a Carnegie Mellon Professor Anind Dey, previously worked for Intel. Dr. James White of CalTech founded a company called Active Spectrum that is developing an RF chip that can apparently tune as needed to most any radio spectrum. All very interesting stuff. So did Google buy this company? Or was it someone else trying to keep the technology quiet? I have no idea. But I read something today that makes that question even murkier. I will blog on that later in the week. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I am off on my annual pilgrimage to Broadband Wireless World this week. Looks to be lots of new goings on. I know of at least one major launch being announced at the show. They have kept pretty quiet so far. If you are in the industry, you will know the man launching this company however. If you are out at the show, feel free to give us a ring. I will be there all day Thursday and Friday. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I am always looking for something new that is useful for Broadband Wireless. And mapping technology is a huge part of the business. Well, I stumbled on something fascinating. It is a new type of location specific search technology at its most basic. But that is just part of it. I had seen a blurb about a big WiFi project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that talked about location based mapping of APs. I thought that was kinda neat. Well, this led me to a Thesis that a researcher there (by the name of Napier Fuller) wrote. You have to pay to download the thesis so I started searching for him. It appears he has started a company. Wireless 5th Dimensional Networking is a pretty bare bones site. The Silicon Valley company does not go out of its way to tell you all that much about itself. Fuller is listed as the Founder and President. It has filed at least one patent and that and the Thesis paper is linked on its site.  The website also says it was sold this year to an anonymous buyer. I only got voice mail when I called. Well, now I am starting to wonder why all the secrecy about who bought them out.  Well, I love a mystery. And they were making it just hard enough for me to intrigue me, so I looked up the patent application. Now that turned out to be pretty easy. And guess what? Both the patent and paper are in the filing there. The paper is under the Documents tab. Turns out that this patent heavily references this research Thesis, which is based on something called Context Aware Search. Folks this is no less than an application of Artificial Intelligence to location (and I mean Access Point) specific searching. I won't try to describe it all in this blog. But it impressed the dickens out of me. Basically its a search engine that's designed from the ground up for wireless networks. Imagine a search engine that understands what hotspot you are at and can filter every search query you make based on that. BUT which also takes into account the time of day and day of the week you are searching as well as parsing commonsense knowledge people in the area should have. Driving directions are not take street so and so. They are instead go West two blocks from the Big Dome, turn right and look for Tang Hall. If you type in "shows tonight" it might give you times of nearby shows that are not sold out (if such info is available) and that you have time to get to from your location (at least supposedly). Now if this is not just smoke and mirrors (and the company is going a bit out of its way to not claim anything from what I can tell) this is a radical search innovation. I am going to dig a bit more into this and post more later. I don't know how far along this is or even if it is even close to a product phase, but… I am especially curious who bought them and why it is being kept so quiet. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com 

     I first saw this piece in a Wall Street Journal Article by Don Clark. Here is an MSN link for more info. I don't recall hearing about this suit before. Apparently the Department of Justice alleged that Qualcom violated provisions in the Scott-Rodino act from 2005 designed to prevent anti-competitive activities leading up to a merger. For their part Qualcomm and Flarion deny this but agreed to pay $1.8 million to make it go away. What grabbed me most was supposedly that the DOJ did not believe Qualcomm intended to use Flarion's Flash-OFDM technology in its present form. And so it supposedly wanted to avoid Flarion involvement in deals that could conflcit with its plans and allegely pursuing sales efforts that did not benefit Qualcomm strategy before the deal closed. Now I have no idea if this is the case or not. But if it were so, it brings up interesting questions as to how Qualcomm plans to use this tech. What exactly might they plan to do with it? And where would that leave existing Flarion customers? Fun speculation eh? Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    Granted it is just a subcommittee but this week saw a bill allowing AT&T and Verizon to file for and receive (within 30 days) a national cable franchise, make steady progress to the full Energy and Commerce Committe and possibly, eventually the House floor. The Telcos would prefer that their IP service not be deemed to be a cable franchise. But they appear willing to give ground on that somewhat to get the bill done. This will be a big deal increasingly. Good for consumers I think. Time's they are a changing. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I saw another good blurb in the Rural Spectrum Scanner this past week on the 3.65 GHz band. The big issue in this range is a required "contention protocol" that the FCC has mandated. This is an approach not to dissimilar to the approach used in WiFi or ethernet where radios first listen for traffic then talk. The problem is that it is not a very spectrally efficient way to handle radio polling. As you might expect the FCC did not specify what contention protocol companies should use resulting in some confusion. In any event, some comments by industry have asked the FCC to remove this requirement altogether, which is a bit problematic as it was designed to protect the Fixed Satellite Service stations grandfathered in the spectrum. Also, the spectrum is not exactly unlicensed (although the FCC probably intended to lean in this direction) technically. It requires the registration of base stations on a non-exclusive basis. Jeff Thompson at Towerstream likes to call this approach "lightly regulated". In an of itself that is no bad idea. Opinions on what to do with this spectrum are all over the shop. Some favor switching it all to licensed bands. Others say licensed in urban areas, non-exclusive in rural areas. Ultimately the FCC is going to have to re-work its Report and Order to re-define this spectrum a bit. Once accomplished though, it is potentially very valuable spectrum. It would also be very easy (and economical) to re-tune existing 3.5 GHz WiMax gear for this range. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    This report about Canopy's new Cable compatible wireless systems caught my eye. I thought it was quite interesting. I have not seen anyone else come out with gear optimized to help cablecos extend their networks. With the Telcos coming after their video business with IPTV and the cablecos in turn offering VoIP and Broadband this makes a lot of sense. I can see some real potential sales gains here. Apparently the modems make use of the data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS) 2.0 standard to handle the translation to the cable system. Neat idea, whose time has come. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    There is an excellent piece in Law Firm Bennet & Bennet's Rural Signals newsletter about the upcoming auction of AWS spectrum in the 1.7 GHz and 2.1 GHz range. Here is a chart they offer on the band plan. The first auction is set for June 2006. I highly recommend reading the full analysis. It is complex. Basically though the upshot is that acquiring the spectrum is only part of the cost. There are numerous protective requirements for existing users in the spectrum range as well as others in side bands. Much to know. But potentially very valuable spectrum encompassing 90 MHz of spectrum. The expectation is that 1,122 licenses will be awarded. Voice, video and data are all allowed as is both fixed and mobile broadband. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    Russia is quickly becoming the WiMAX capitol of the world it seems. We have companies announcing launches all over the place. the most recent is Synterra who announced this past week what it calls the first WiMax network in Moscow. I think my friend Lee Sparkman with Enforta might have been the first WiMax oriented carrier to launch in the country. However, Synterra may well be the first in Moscow. Synterra is a pretty full-fleshed communications company. It comprises the firms of Komet, RTComm and Telecom Center. Interesting launch too. It is a business only launch, which I approve of heartily in a nascent market. The company has several hundred customers reportedly already with several thousand expected by the end of the year. Its investment in the city is expected to be about $3 million wiht $4 million in the Moscow region. A very solid launch. Kudos to them. I will try to see if I can get them on WGN soon for an interview. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    One of my good friends, Ken DiPietro blogs quite lucidly on Municipal wireless, public policy and many other things. Ken's Blog covers many topics, but I was especially struck by one blog on Regulation as being very important and a potentially massive looming problem. The Telcos want to control the quality of IP traffic. Basically they propose their circuits to be a toll road. Nevermind that we the public are already paying for service. The Telcos have decided they want to offer prioritization and the FCC seems amenable to allow this. Why is this bad? Well on the surface it isn't necessarily. Many VoIP companies would probably do well to have their IP traffic prioritized on a network for example. Of course, what about smaller companies who could not afford this "prioritization", would they in turn be discriminated against or relegated to something less than they have now? One has to think yes. So structurally, would this mean that every network IP traffic would cross to reach a consumer would get its own little cut? I shudder to think how many hops I go through just to reach Google. How many times must Google pay for me to get free services from them? Ultimately, if this happens I pay or I do without or someone wealthier gets a better experience. What if we are talking online education or distance learning. Will poorer children or school systems be able to afford the educational content that wealthier patrons of the net will get? What about rural kids? I don't know. But it is a slippery slope.   Now, how this came about is straightforward enough. The Telcos have enjoyed a monopoly, albeit a regulated one for a long time. One could say that the regulation makes things inherently fair. Trust me, the Telcos learned to play the political game of regulation long ago. They get their way, just witness a Louisiana law forbidding the city of New Orleans from operating a broadband network. Remember the days when cable TV was illegal in bigger cities? The broadcast stations had a great lobby then. Now, for a long time Telcos have been content to deliver the content as they always have. It was no big deal, they had the pipes. The problem now is that innovation has exploded what was one of the truly stable business models in the US (along with electric power). Voice over IP by the cablecos and cellular service is rapidly stripping the incumbent Telcos of their cash cow, which is local service. I think they have few choices with the switch type networks most are operating. What are they going to do to ensure they maintain revenues? And trust me, we do need them to survive. They do operate most of the nation's backbone. So what is a happy medium ground? I don't know that I have the answer but I don't think giving them a regulatory win of such profound nature is the answer. I suspect what the Telcos must do is learn to compete as commercial companies do in the marketplace. The recent uptick in fiber deployments by AT&T and others is very encouraging because it means they are adjusting to offer new products like IPTV. I think this is the path of success. A positive one too. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I read yet another good article in the wall street journal this past week about the change in thinking amongst a few companies that previously fought Muni wireless. Now, in general I think that co-opting Muni wireless is the height of wisdom. Not because Muni wireless necessarily makes a lot of sense especially in regards to the business case (can you say free wi-fi access—oh goodness). Rather my opinion is that it is a juggernaut for simple human reasons. People fear being left behind and city politicians are especially fearful of this. It has become the end all be all of things one must have to attract industry. Nevermind that no one yet knows if it will work at large scale. And too Wi-Fi technology is especially poorly suited for citywide access. Well, what is is as they say. So some of these companies are Tim Warner, AT&T and Cox Communications. Cox is working with a couple of other firms in Arizona. Time Warner has perked its interest up in Texas and AT&T is already bidding to deploy service in Michigan. Probably the big upside to all of this is that it could be a real precursor driver for a better type of Wireless Municipal Area Network (WMAN). Either WiMax or a solid proprietary system that could predominate in unlicensed bands. I don't see licensed spectrum mobility plays filling this same niche. The cell providers will be years filling this need and their early pricing is entirely too high. I know much of the Forum is greatly enamored with Mobility because they all have hopes of winning the high scale marketplace. But limited mobility more fixed solutions are what are winning the market now. For good or ill, muni wireless is here to stay. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com

    I saw a good article in the Wall Street Journal last week about a Bon Jovi concert that Sprint/Nextel were going to host in December. It turns out the first fifteen minutes delivered a blank screen. Then glory of glories the band appeared, only to disappear over and over again. The message read "We are experiencing technical problems. Please come back in a few minutes." Now I know you are tempted to laugh. But this is no laughing matter for the cell carriers who really need new revenue streams. After all, most everyone has a cell phone. So raw customer growth will be blunted in the years to come. Additional services are the best option. Current offerings for music have got much press but the price is egregious ranging from .99c for a song up to $2.50. Goodness knows what they think they can charge for video. So the strong need is there. The platform is not. Enter WiMax. Sprint has the best chance to take advantage of this with their wide 2.5 GHz spectrum holdings. But will they? I am not at all sure they will. They may go with a Qualcomm solution or a UMTS derived one.   At the end of the day efficient content will be IP based. And technologies with roots in voice calling seem to me to be an expensive bandaid when a tourniquet may be needed. Just some food for thought on a Friday morning. Tim Sanders tim@thefinalmile.net  www.thefinalmile.net  www.wimaxglobalnews.com