Nearpoints

Craig Mathias

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Let's Not Forget Fixed Wireless

Sure, mobile gets all the press, but it's by no means the entire wireless opportunity

By Craig Mathias on Wed, 07/21/10 - 12:41pm.

The killer app for wireless is, of course, in mobility; wire just can't compete here. But there are many, many applications of wireless in fixed apps (i.e., where both ends of a given connection are stationary) where wireless is also king, the advantage usually resulting from a huge reduction in the expense otherwise required in installing wire. Rural areas and developing economies come to mind here, of course, but also consider dense urban areas where digging up the streets is not cheap, and applications like telemetry where communications are vital but low volume and/or infrequent. In short, fixed wireless access remains an exciting if less-visible opportunity.

As evidence, consider Proxim's recent announcement of their Tsunami 8150-CPE line of subscriber units. You can think of this as the consumer endpoint for Proxim's 8100 series of high-performance point-to-point and point-to-multipoint links. But get this - the 8150-CPE is a 2x2 MIMO, OFDM, 256-bit AES, 100 Mbps (!), QoS-manageable product that sells for as little as $299 (list!) for the indoor version. This is really amazing - I was struck during the briefing for this announcement that, only a few years ago, carriers would have paid many times that price for just voice, back in the days of wireless local loop (WLL). As we all knew it would, that local loop has evolved into broadband, and we now have precisely that - but at an unbelievable price. Note this product isn't Wi-Fi, but can easily serve as backhaul for Wi-Fi without even breathing hard.

While the analyst coverage isn't there, the market for products of this type is enormous. And it is, regardless, vital - vast populated areas of this planet have poor communications services - and often none at all. Products like this can correct that issue at a price that significantly broadens the market and provides excellent ROI for carriers even in emerging economies. All I can say is - wow! And, of course, congratulations to Proxim, one of the longest-surviving pioneers in the wireless space. By the way, my first-ever analyst briefing, just after I founded Farpoint Group, was with Proxim, and I've continued to follow the company (as well as use many of their products, which include Wi-Fi) over the years. And I'm willing to bet that this announcement will finally attract a lot of attention from the analyst community, even among those who have forgotten just how big the fixed wireless opportunity really is.