MD of Nova Networks "Why Does WiMAX Suck So Badly" Article

Chloroplast

Just seen this on the Nova Networks News page, for those interested :

News Article:

Why Does Irish WiMAX Suck So Badly?

Our MD tells you why....

Unless you live under a rock, you will by now have heard about the new "craze" that is spreading across the nation.

I am here to tell you why it is making people so "crazy".

First, please take a look at the reviews at RateMyISP.ie (warning:adult language). I really feel for those poor people who were woo'd by the glossy advertising. The promise of "Faster, Cheaper, Better" has become more like "Grief, Grief and More Grief". The reasons for this failed wireless broadband roll-out are:

1) Bad choice of radio spectrum band. 3.5GHz sucks for indoor coverage
If you look at the "dial" on an old manually tuned FM car radio, you will see it goes from 88 up to 108. 2FM hangs out around 90-92. TodayFM hangs out around the 100-104 mark. Everyone gets their slice of the airwaves.

Mobile (dongle) or Nomadic (window modem) WiMAX around the world usually hangs out at the 2500 mark (2.5GHz). At this "slice", radio waves can (kind of) see around corners, through walls, etc. Therefore they can get good indoor coverage. BUT in Ireland, UPC use this for the MMDS TV service, so it is not available.

The current WiMAX rollout in Ireland uses 3500 (3.5GHz) on the radio dial. At these frequencies, radio waves are pretty poor at seeing around corners, through walls, etc, so indoor coverage is rubbish.

Bad choice, guys, your whole roll-out is based on a fundamental flaw from the start!

2) Oversubscription of the service
Do you know ANYONE who reckons their mobile broadband is as good as fixed line or fixed wireless? Neither do I. With wild promises of speed, all you really get is a couple of meg at best.

Picture this: A mobile/nomadic broadband company, whether using 3G or WiMAX, put up a base station in suburb X. The base station can give good service to one user, reasonable service to say 100 users, rubbish service to any more than that. But the problem is, as it is mobile/nomadic, they have NO way of predicting how loaded that base station will become. 300 users could turn up as they buy dongles or window modems as the sales people blindly load orders up on the system, desperately chasing targets.

By contrast, fixed line broadband has X number of lines capacity, full stop. Our fixed wireless service is installed by us at each home/business, so we can predict exact loading and never overload our sectors.

Does your WiMAX suck? How many neighbours are using it? Probably more than your provider expected.

3) A provider believing glossy spec-sheets from vendors
Believe me, I've seen it all. Big-name (and small-name) equipment vendors promise the earth, moon and stars on spec-sheets for base stations and subscriber units. My rule is to halve each value. If they say it has a range of 20Km, take it as 10Km. If they say it will do 50Mb, take it as 25Mb. Unfortunately for the company involved in the failed WiMAX rollout, the promise of the economics of self-install customers is so attractive that the figures quoted by the equipment vendors must have been taken as achievable in the real world - they never are. So YOUR service from them is based on something that can never be.

Does that sound like faster OR better OR cheaper to you?

Dave Mc Donald
MD of Nova Networks.

jor el

This article should have been called, "Why does Imagine WiMax suck so badly", because WiMax is a very capable technology, just that Imagine have chosen to implement it in a cheap and unreliable way. I'm sure the lack of mention of Imagine in the article is deliberate, because Nova don't want to get sued, so instead of writing something accurate and worthwhile, they'd rather take a sly dig at their competitor in an implied way, so that everyone knows who they're talking about, but they remain clear of libel laws.

To me, this article says more about Nova than it does about Imagine (as poor as Imagine might be), and Nova do not come off well by it.

bigpaddy2004

jor el wrote: »

To me, this article says more about Nova than it does about Imagine (as poor as Imagine might be), and Nova do not come off well by it.

Eh....what? Your comment makes no sense.
Most of what Dave wrote has to do with how Wimax is handled in Ireland and he done a lovely job of explaining it in lay mans terms for the non techie people. He explained in small detail how they (Nova) do it, and it is the truth.
How does that not do them justice?

watty

There are Fixed WiMax networks that work fine in Ireland.

Imagine WiMmax is unique among Irish WiMax based networks, for the reasons mentioned (Actually it's worse than suggested as the frequency is 3.6GHz).

So the Content is fine, they just should have made it clear that it only applies to Imagine WiMax.

A Mobile technology inherently has about x8 less capacity than pure Fixed Wireless because the omni directional mobile aerials versus Fixed Directional higher gain outdoor aerials. Using some outdoor aerials doesn't help
http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-wireless-broadband-better

Imagine are using a licence intended for Fixed Wireless, with Mobile Technology on the Wrong band. They are doing it because "mobile" has zero install cost. They save €80 to €350 per subscriber. But it's at the expense of wasting 7/8ths of the capacity of their licenced spectrum and saddling the Country with yet another "rollout" that is not real Broadband (NBS is the other).