Affordable access to the Mobile Internet - A fundamental right of the 21st century citizen

[Jose Puthenkulam]

Today the Internet has grown to be the most used information medium, mankind has known. It allows a freedom of expression that is unparalleled compared to other media. In some instances it also augments other media.

As mobile broadband technologies get deployed the power of the internet medium multiplies to levels unimagined before.

- Today news reporters has been augmented by Bloggers, Tweeters (folks using Twitter), Email, Instant Messaging

- TV is augmented by Web Videos from YouTube, MySpace, Hulu.com etc

- Newpapers have been supplanted or complemented by Google News and other news aggregation sites

- Searching for information in the papers, books etc have been augmented by Google Search, Yahoo Search and Bing Search engines and the like.

- Internet based voice calling has made Skype by far the largest internet VoIP operator with 400+ million registered users and also upto 16 million simultaneous users (imagine the trunking efficiency of the internet...)

- Workers can work from anywhere they are improving their work life balance. Thus mobility unleashes

So we are living in a world, where access to the Mobile Internet needs to be a fundamental right for the 21st century citizen. The resulting empowerment will lead to myriads of innovations the world has yet not seen and we as informed citizens can benefit from these new technologies.

Today mobile voice technologies (like GSM, CDMA) are pervading the globe, however I have to admit, cost of cell phone calls in the developed world is still very high compared India, China etc. I believe this one reason why it took so long for for technologies like GSM or CDMA to grow. Mobile operators became cash cows, but users ended up paying very high subscription rates.

So when it comes Mobile Internet access, affordability is key and it should be universal. Mobile WiMAX has all the characteristics to provide affordable Mobile Internet access and thus very well serve the 21st century citizens. So if any Mobile operator does not deliver to your needs, never fail to question them, remember its your fundamental right.




(These opinions are my own and not those of my employer)

[Alan J Weissberger]

Does anyone think governments should subsidize Mobile Internet access, like the state government's subsidize "lifeline telephone service?" State residents that are below an income threshold get a substantial discount on wireline phone service (at least in CA). Should that be extended to the Mobile Internet? Note that it is NOT extended to fixed line (broadband or narrowband) Internet access.

Has anyone done a comparison of the IP licensing costs of a 3G device vs mobile WiMAX device? Of course, there are very few native mode WiMAX devices?

[Alan J Weissberger]

Mobile WiMAX will be much more affordable than LTE (assuming it's deployed)

Both Mobile WiMAX and LTE have similar capabilities from an operator service and end user standpoint. A key question is how expensive will the network equipment and devices be? Mobile WiMAX has already gone through two cycles of cost reduction in terms of chip sets and base stations. LTE has not yet been deployed, so is already behind Mobile WiMAX in the cost reduction cycle. Another important, but often overlooked item is end to end system cost.

The WiMAX "Core IP network" consists of off the shelf network building blocks with specifications based on IETF RFC’s, e.g. IP routers, Authentication Servers, OSS, BSS, mobile IP home agents, etc. While WiMAX does not require any specific core IP network, 3G and LTE require specific core network building blocks that are specified by the 3GPP. That will make them much more costly than WiMAX core network systems.

[Kobe Wadsworth]

Thanks for that, I agree, on data only networks, operators are extracting services like voip in order to make more money. voice is inherent to the Internet, like data, video, etc. They could compete with voice and data networks, if they would just let data flow. This would help the adoption of 4G, and spur growth in these technologies.