Hi. Everyone. I am finally back blogging. My new website is (almost) finished and I thought it a good time to resume. I thought it would also be a good time for a series of recaps of all things wireless for this year and bring you up to date with some new things for me. I will do this in a series of several blogs because there is a ton to talk about.

To begin with my podcast, www.wimaxglobalnews.com is shifting from being done with with a partner, Tom Parish, to just me. Tom had some life and carreer changes this year that led him in a different direction. I will miss him. But I am going to work very hard to re-dedicate myself to the podcast and get that out regularly. I hope to start having interesting guests on shortly.

I am finally getting close on the new website and it will feature an industry forum feature for those who like chatting about the industry. I will moderate it. The Golden Rule of good conduct applies. It will also have lots of new features for visitors to make reading it easier.

Also, I have been doing a ton of media related work this past year but it looks like this year will shift toward working more in the WiMax industry and with clients. And my first research report, which will be geared to (you guessed it) what I know best which will be US Wireless ISPs should be out this winter.

It has been an eventful year. The two biggest stories in my opinion have been Municipal Wireless and WiMax, especially their win with Sprint Nextel. After that, the consolidation in the industry is very noticeable as is a new love affair with business-to-business focus by Broadband Wireless Providers, which I deeply approve of.

WiMax has been slowed by the shift toward using the 802.16e standard versus the 802.16d version, which in my opinion will shortly become the de-facto WiMax standard. In retrospect it would have been great if it could have been chosen for both fixed and mobile WiMax (802.16e) to begin with as I think the industry would be farther along. But all things in good time. I am not troubled by the shift. I do hope the Forum comes out with some fixed version 802.16e for unlicensed band providers but we will see.

I do think fixed WiMax technology will continue to do well for a time, but I expect we will see tons of fixed applications of mobile WiMax versions of 802.16e type technology in replacement of it. Most of the carriers currently active with precursor 802.16e technology are using it in fixed format. It is after all exactly what Clearwire, Unwired Australia, and numerous others are doing. This is where the low-hanging fruit is. Selling WiMax as a mobile service for those who are not already cellular companies will be a big culture shift. Note I said culture, not technology. I think the bigger hurdle will be changing their cultures to think Mobile. For that reason I expect non cellular WiMax carriers to be slow in ramping up mobile offerings. They will talk about it but actually doing it will be a big. deal. Besides the customer demand in fixed setting will be so high for a while that I think they may struggle to find mindshare for those shifts. Mobile will come as the Muni movement pushes it and the technologies converge and as fixed adoption slows. Then traditional fixed aspect carriers will look to shift to a more mobile stance.

I am going to end this first installment to keep the blog short. But I will add to this recap series in the coming week. Good to be back. Thanks for reading my blog.

tim@thefinalmile.net    www.wimaxglobalnews.com    www.thefinalmile.net