IP Wireless
IPWireless Why It's Fierce: Lost in the hype of WiMAX is a little company called IPWireless, which has developed and marketed broadband technology called UMTS TD-CDMA. This standardized next-generation network technology was originally anticipated to be rolled out in 2008 essentially for overflow capacity for when WCDMA FDD channels had reached capacity. But IPWireless accelerated the development and commercialization of the technology years sooner, creating a non-line-of-sight high-capacity system designed as a DSL replacement. TD-CDMA made little impact at first, going into the networks of small wireless ISPs in various parts of the world. But in the last year, industry heavyweights such as Orange and Sprint Nextel have launched trials of its technology, and T-Mobile has built TD-CDMA networks commercially in the Czech Republic. To date, IPWireless has eight commercial deployments and 11 trials worldwide. Earlier this year, the company introduced a mobile TV architecture called TDtv designed to allow operators to multicast video over TDD spectrum cheaper than running a separate DVB-H network. It's important to note that IPWireless' technology is likely to be an important part of the next phase of the UMTS standard, known as Long Term Evolution. What to look for: IPWireless has a lot riding on what technology Sprint is going to deploy in the 2.5 GHz band. Sprint is trialing a host of technologies in addition to TD-CDMA, but the operator has invested a total of $14 million in IPWireless. Why would an operator sink that kind of money into an obscure company if it wasn’t going to use the technology? If Sprint does indeed choose TD-CDMA in a big way, it will thrust IPWireless into the upper echelon of the industry and increase TD-CDMA adoption. |