Bluenowhere Chairman, Peter Curnow-Ford is interviewed by Wi-Fi Planet…(full story here)…
Bluenowhere is working on two different WiMAX plays. Later this year, it will launch its 802.16e-based wholesale mobile WiMAX business in selected cities in Britain. (It has been involved in a pilot in Maidstone, Kent since early last year as part of a Mobile WiMAX Acceleration Group initiative.)
In the meantime, it’s developing a new model and infrastructure for a wholesale WiMAX business to support triple-play operators in rural areas offering voice, video, and broadband Internet services. “Whereas in urban areas, it’s 80% mobile and 20% fixed/nomadic,” Curnow-Ford says. “It will be the reverse in rural areas.”
The company plans to deliver at least 8 Mbps to rural homes using WiMAX for the last mile and very high-capacity millimeter-wave wireless technology from suppliers, such as GigaBeam and DragonWave for backhaul to the fiber backbone.
It hopes to find support for this in government initiatives flowing from the Digital Britain report, the preliminary recommendations of a parliamentary committee that include guaranteeing availability of 2-megabits-per-second (Mbps) or faster broadband access to every home and business in the country.
WiMAX will almost inevitably play a role, Curnow-Ford believes. While fiber-to-the-home is the logical choice for high-speed broadband services in much of the country, there will still be 8.9% of the population that for business and technological reasons can never get 2 Mbps over a wire.
“And 40% will never get [wireline] 8-Meg service,” he adds. That’s the minimum needed for a triple-play service.
The European Union, meanwhile, is mandating funding in the $1.5 billion range for national broadband initiatives, such as Digital Britain.
