WiMAX a precursor to Consumer Device Connectivity?
The first WiMAX networks are planned to start in less than a week. According to Eric Lin of PhoneScoop.com, Sprint Nextel will “soft launch” its so called XOHM WiMax network in the next few days. Lin quotes Bin Shen, VP of Sprint Nextel’s Product Management and Partnership Development. Shen says “Chicago, Washington DC and Baltimore will all go live at soft launch.” Sprint Nextel thus keeps their promise to have a live network by 2007, even if the launch is non-commercial. On the negative side, wireless ISP Clearwire has announced they will not continue to partner with Sprint Nextel to develop WiMAX networks. In dropping their participation, Clearwire cited the complexities associated with the Letter of Intent they signed in July, 2007. Sprint Nextel seems unphased by Clearwire’s decision, saying they remain fully committed to deploying WiMAX networks and developing services for those systems. What might those devices and services be?
Broadband network cards and laptops with WiMAX chips seem obvious products. Dual mode CDMA/WiMAX handsets are also predictable. During the days of the Clearwire partnership, consumer electronic products such as digital cameras and portable gaming devices were to have Intel made WiMAX chips built in. TiVo like hard drive equipment capable of storing full length movies seemed also possible, along with real time video conferencing hardware. But what about special purpose devices? One such product is Amazon’s book reader called Kindle. It accesses the net to download electronic book editions. Air time is bundled into the price of the e-book, so a customer is not directly billed for access. A digital photo service could act in the same way. Photos might go directly from a camera to a hosting or processing service that would recover its airtime costs by building them into the goods it sells. One could also provide Internet access by charging for each session. Aside from the Kindle, this new business model, the first test of open networks, has not been tried by other companies. The notable exception is OnStar, provided by General Motors.
OnStar is a communications, monitoring and tracking service. Among other things, OnStar can provide voice communications, air bag deployment notification, help in an emergency, vehicle diagnostic assessment, stolen car location assistance, and remote door unlock. GM bundles OnStar’s cost into the price of a vehicle, or it charges a monthly fee. The customer pays GM, therefore, for a service, and General Motors in turn pays airtime costs to a wireless carrier. As noted before, this business model has not caught on, save for telematic services to utilities providing gas pipeline and electrical systems monitoring. In those cases, a monthly fee is charged each company for information provided over cellular radio networks.
It will be interesting to see if Sprint Nextel will have the financial ability to build out their WiMAX networks. Toptechnews.com says WiMAX accounted for about $31 million in expenses and $73 million in investments during the third quarter. This for a company that in the most recent quarter lost $500 million in revenue over the last year. 337,000 subscribers were lost in the last quarter alone. WiMAX technology may be visionary, but will any carrier have the funding to make it work?
Labels: Clearwire, Kindle, Onstar, Sprint/Nextel, WIMAX, XOHM
Marketing of Cell Tower and Rooftop Sites
Landowners who have a tower lease or a rooftop lease for a cell site are being contacted regularly by companies that allege that they can "Market" the cell tower or cell site for future use by other wireless carriers thereby increasing the revenue on the site. Many landowners we talk to are intrigued by the possibility of getting additional rent from additional cell site users.
We believe that these offers are rarely good ones for the landowner. If you have been approached by a company offering to "market" your land or rooftop, more than likely they just want to purchase your lease or get a fee for listing your property on a list. And after they purchase the lease or list the property, it is possible that you never hear from them until you are contacted directly by a wireless carrier who wants to lease your property or rooftop. At this point, regardless of the fact that the marketing company had nothing to do with getting an additional tenant on your roof or tower, instead of getting 100% of the revenue for your property, you get 50%.
We strongly recommend that if anyone suggests to you that they can acquire additional leases for you- that you ask them how many leases they have found for other landowners like you. Some companies represent that they have acquired millions of dollars in future revenue for their clients. Ask them directly how many leases they have acquired on behalf of their clients and how many clients they have. Ask how many people in their organization directly market their cell sites to the carriers. How many local representatives do they have in your city whose sole responsibility it is to call on the wireless companies? How many people do they have in the entire company whose sole responsibility it is to market cell sites to the wireless carriers?
If you have a tower that is owned by another company, ask them how they are going to be more effective at marketing your location than the tower company that owns the tower who has 50-100 people whose only job it is to keep in touch with the carriers to add more tenants to the tower.
If you come across any of the myriad of websites for represent that you can pay them a listing fee for marketing your site for wireless- ask the same questions.
Steel in the Air does not market cell sites- nor would we ever even try to. We could easily convince a few hundred of the 20,000 visitors to our website every month to shell out $100 to list their property with us- but we don't. We used to do property evaluations- and had a significant amount of interest in the service. We stopped because we could not stomach taking money from landowners who would never see anything in return for our services other than a pretty map.
If you want to increase your chances of getting other tenants on your rooftop or on the tower on your property- there are some things you can do for free. First see our page on
how to get a cell tower on your property. There are links to the carrier websites where you can submit your information. Secondly, be patient. This industry is based around location, location, location- if your site is in the right location, the carriers will use it. If not- they won't. No amount of marketing will convince a carrier that your site is right for them when it isn't. And lastly, please don't contact Steel in the Air. We simply can't and won't help you market your site.
The Next Frontier: Consumer Electronic Devices with Cellular Connections
In a seeming nod to the potential of an open access network for consumer devices, Verizon has announced that it will start to focus more on connectivity of consumer electronic devices similar to what Sprint announced with its
XOHM plans.
Verizon will allow any device that meets minimum technical standards to access Verizon's
CDMA network. If you recall from an earlier post on
WiMAX with Sprint, this is what Sprint proposed to do. Both companies are excited about the prospect of high speed wireless connections to all type of devices and the prospect of the minutes of use that would come with those connections.
Recently, Amazon announced its Kindle e-book reader which uses the Sprint
EVDO network (
CDMA initially) to download books to the reader. In this situation, Amazon has worked out an arrangement with Sprint to pay for the network usage rather than the end user. It is easy to foresee future devices where the minutes of use cost is absorbed by the device provider.
Labels: CDMA, Sprint PCS, WIMAX, XOHM
