One big advantage copper has had over fiber is that glass fiber tends to break in sharp bends, and light transmission can be impaired in even soft bends. While not capable of carrying backhaul speeds, Corning developed a new bendable fiber that was said to tolerate sharp bends. Corning’s first real world customer has found the fiber does work as advertised.

Verizon worked with Corning during trials and has plans to deploy the technology shortly, but a company by the name of Connexion Technologies this week became the first Clearcurve customer.

According to Connexion, a Flordia FTTH installer, the bendable fiber was a time and money saver when it came to MDU installs. “During our field trials, we saw firsthand the ease and speed of installation of the ClearCurve Drop Cable,” says company founder Glen Lang. “With this technology, we were able to realize at least a 30-percent time savings, in addition to material savings such as ducts.”

This demonstration video from the Corning website is worth watching. (from Broadband Reports)

On the heels of a number of access provider trials, the Wimax forum’s main test lab in Spain is now accepting mobile Wimax devices for certification. Certification testing insures conformity to specs and interoperability. For those who have been calling Wimax dead, this is a strong rebuttal.

Throughout 2008, service providers are expected to expand current Mobile WiMAX deployments to broader populations in their regions. The WiMAX Forum currently estimates that more than 300 operators in over 65 countries have deployed Mobile WiMAX pilots and trials.

As Mobile WiMAX deployments continue to grow in size and scope in 2008, the WiMAX Forum plans to open new certification labs in India and Taiwan to address the demand for equipment certification. (from CMP)

Here’s a snapshot of the overseas action on the WiMax front:

UK

UK consumers may be offered even more options in the new year as Ofcom has announced a new set of auctions to sell off wireless spectrum.

Bidders will have until January 16th to place bids in the formerly called 3G extension band sell-off that will offer space on the 2010-2025 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz bands.

Ofcom wants to reorganise more than 400 MHz of spectrum that analysts say could be used for services such as wireless broadband, mobile television and fixed television or local TV stations.

Nomura analyst Martin Mabbutt stated in a research note: “The amount of spectrum available for allocation over the next couple of years is enormous within the context of spectrum bands, which offer the chance to develop services which have high value, thanks to the functionality attached to them.”

Bulgaria

Moovera Networks, a leading developer of fixed and mobile wireless access systems, today announced that its Moovbox product line of broadband gateways now supports FLASH-OFDM from Qualcomm Flarion Technologies for cellular wide area network connectivity. FLASH-OFDM (Fast Low-latency Access with Seamless Handoff - Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) is an innovative wireless technology designed to deliver advanced Internet services in the mobile environment.

Broadband networks utilizing FLASH-OFDM have been deployed in various countries around the world, most recently in Finland. To address the market opportunity in Finland and other countries in Scandinavia and the Baltic, Moovera has appointed a new distributor Daimler Finland Oy who will develop sales and marketing activities throughout the region.

“Support for a wide range of carrier-class backhaul technologies is a key competitive advantage of the Moovbox product line,” said Jim Baker, Moovera CEO and founder. “FLASH-OFDM is an important technology not least as it can operate at low frequencies that cover much wider areas than traditional voice and data wireless networks such as 3G and WiMAX. By merging FLASH-OFDM with Wi-Fi access, our Moovbox gateway products can deliver Internet access to any Wi-Fi enabled device for industrial, public safety and commercial hotspot applications anywhere there is FLASH-OFDM coverage.”

Tajikistan

China’s Huawei has been selected by Babilon-T, the largest telecommunication operator in Tajikistan, to deploy the Central Asia’s first WiMAX commercial network. Under the terms of agreement, Huawei will provide an end-to-end Mobile WiMAX network, including distributed Base Station, Wireless Access Service Node-Gateway, Network Management Equipment and Terminals.

The network will cover the four major areas of Tajikistan, including its capital Dushanbe. Rollout will start immediately and is expected to launch during the first quarter of 2008.

To meet the increasing demand for broadband, and taking into account the mountainous terrain in Tajikistan, Babilon-T is adopting WiMAX technology to enable its subscribers to realize wireless broadband access.

China

KAOHSIUNG, the program aimed at building a WiMAX network across the city to facilitate wireless data transmission, was launched in August 2006, with the Industrial Development Bureau and the Chunghwa Telecom Company, Taiwan’s largest telecommunication services provider, providing financial subsidies.

Under the program, which is estimated to cost US$18.5 million, 25 base transceiver stations will be built in districts surrounding the main venues for The World Games to turn the city into a barrier-free environment for data transmission.

So far, five base stations have been completed, most of which are located along the Love River flowing through the city, the officials said.

Nigeria

The importance of Nigeria to the major IT players came to the fore recently when Intel Chairman, Mr. Craig Barrett visited the country. With earnings of over $35bn, Intel a global semi conductor leader is digging into the Nigerian market by way of being a major beneficiary when the IT market explodes.

And that is already happening, according to Barrett. He spared some time to speak to Vanguard’s Asst Editor, Communications, Okoh Aihe. The stuff will make a fascinating read.

Monday, Bruce spoke to us with quite some excitement and he left most of the major news for you to break. I like to find out from you, what is the major excitement about Nigeria and Africa at this particular point in time?

India

MUMBAI: VSNL, a Tata group company, is unlocking value in its broadband and retail internet business. It is looking to sell a part of its stake in the broadband venture, which had been recently hived off into a separate entity - Direct Internet.

This comes on the back of a similar move by VSNL, which has sold a 10% stake in its Sri Lankan subsidiary for 75 million Sri Lankan rupees to Sunshine Holdings, a Sri Lankan conglomerate.

VSNL is looking to sell 20% stake in Direct Internet. According to a Tata group source, a few financial investors have already shown an interest in buying into the company. As per rules, FDI in internet service providers is capped at 74%. VSNL’s broadband business already has a subscriber base of half-a-million across the country.

The stake sale comes at a time when the company is making strategic changes in its business model. Earlier, VSNL which was also the sole internet provider, accessed homes of customers through telephone lines of state owned companies like BSNL. However, in the last few years, as telecom firms have themselves become internet service providers, VSNL is finding it increasingly difficult to access last mile connectivity to customer homes.

Japan

KDDI and Willcom won in a bidding war, which also involved mobile carriers NTT DoCoMo (News - Alert) Inc. and Softbank Corp.

The Japanese government maintains tight controls over wireless services, and according to AP reports, it had stated previously that it would allow only two companies to offerWiMAX . Though other companies can provide WiMAX services, but they will have to lease the frequencies from KDDI or Willcom.

KDDI reportedly is planning to launch next-generation wireless broadband services in the summer of 2009 using the WiMAX standard through a joint venture with firms such as Intel Corp.

Pakistan

KARACHI: “Mobilink has invested over $2.5 billion in infrastructure, network rollout and the largest franchise, retail and customer services network across the nation. We plan to inject an additional $500 million in 2008 to meet the growing demands of our services and the needs of our customers,” said Zouhair A Khaliq, President and CEO of Mobilink in an exclusive interview to Daily Times.

He further said that Mobilink has progressed from voice to carrier-class nationwide services by completing its own 6,500 kilometre redundant fibre optic backbone network across Pakistan. It now plans to provide high-speed data connectivity in the urban and rural sector of Pakistan through WiMax services.

Being a developing country, the expansion of broadband networks and services is of high importance to the Pakistani economy. Broadband connections in the country currently stand at around 0.1 million. With the population figure at over 165 million, this will clearly place Pakistan’s economic development into the next stages of progress.

WiMax on the Move.

Well it appears that Intel’s ViiV initiative is starting to crumble. Here and here. It was a bold gamble by Intel. Develop hardware DRM that was strategically compatible with MS Vista and service packs. Problem was it was hardware based. Hence as content drifted away from using DRM the luster of ViiV started to tarnish. In fact AMD was having better success with AMD Live! a software based competitor.

ViiV would still be a decent product if they would rip out the DRM. It’s command and control capabilities made sense in a multimedia household with many display and audio devices. A shame.

Wired has a story on the considerations and implications of marketing to cellphone devices. This is what we here at ThirdPipe call ‘Place’. [See Dictionary] This may even be a critical battle for the cellular carriers as Google has already demonstrated the use of georeferential markers in portable devices. As Wired observes –

Carriers are now guarding the data zealously, but many people believe it’s only a matter of time - over the next year or two - before marketers can routinely target ads to a potential customer’s location and actions.

Imagine getting pitches for rental cars and hotels the moment you land in San Francisco because an analysis of past calls suggests you tend to take weeklong trips there. Or if day trips to Boston are your thing, you might get an offer for cab service instead.

“My phone has a lot of very specific and detailed information about myself … information that isn’t always going to be resident when I’m at a number of PC browsers,” said Rob Adler, chief executive for mobile Web company go2 Media Inc.

The research firm eMarketer estimates that U.S. spending in mobile ads, at about $900 million in 2007, will grow more than fivefold to nearly $4.8 billion in 2011. By contrast, paid search and other online spending will only double, to about $42 billion in 2011.

More on Politics of Place

The big telcos need  to get used to the idea that we’ll be paying for voice connections over their dedicated network less with growing speed. There will be a declining market for them to connect SIP to non-SIP PSTN devices, but there’s no long term future in it either.

Increasingly, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is playing a similar role as the common denominator interconnecting diverse communication devices and networks. And although the protocol geeks either love or hate SIP, its rapid adoption makes it impossible to ignore.
The entry-level price for an SIP telephone fell to $40 in 2007 from $400 in 2002. Chip manufacturers like Texas Instruments and Broadcom already have third-generation functionality in the pipeline. Best Buy et al do not currently carry SIP phones, but web sites dedicated to SIP-enabled products (e.g. telephonydepot.com) arrived in 2007. Hundreds of companies (e.g. Betamax Group) bridge SIP calls to the traditional telephone network. Fring provides free software that turns mobile handsets into SIP clients enabling voice and IM functionality via Wi-Fi and 2G or 3G data plans. (from GigaOm)

Will 2008 be the tipping point? Probably not. Will your future voice communication continue to be tied to 10 digit numbers and dial tones? Not a chance!

The FCC has sent out a second notice of the January 31st requirement for amendment and filing of their 700mhz band plans for public safety and DHS planners. This is one of those reminders of snooze you lose. I would hate to think my fire dept has not forwarded their requirements to the regional authority for inclusion. From the publication –

On July 31, 2007, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopted a Second Report and Order revising the rules governing wireless licenses in the 700 MHz band.1 The Commission adopted a plan for the 700 MHz band to establish a nationwide, interoperable public safety broadband communications network for the benefit of state and local public safety users. The Commission designated the lower half of the 700 MHz public safety band for broadband communications (763-768/793-798 MHz) and consolidated existing narrowband allocations in the upper half of the public safety 700 MHz band (769-775/799-805 MHz).

In revising the band plan for the public safety 700 MHz band, the Commission noted that
consolidating the narrowband channels in the upper part of the band will impact approved and pending 700 MHz regional planning committee (RPC) plans (i.e. require that the plans be amended).2 The Commission required RPCs with approved plans or plans on file to submit amended plans consistent with the decisions adopted in the Second Report and Order by November 23, 2007.3 On November 9, 2007, the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) extended the deadline for RPCs to submit…

Link.

These are interesting times for media businesses. With the TV writers strike in full progress over internet royalties and the mass media industry from movies to music on the skids, all are blaming the internet and piracy for all that has gone wrong for them. At the same time, most of us are accustomed to web based apps that enable far flung groups to input to and access data. Perhaps the big media may be sufferening from declining relevance as much as they if not more than they are from piracy.

Consider what a little app called eSession enable an artist to do. From an article on the O’Reilly site:

I was in a New York hotel room, working on a new song. Because it was a New York hotel room, I had barely enough space to open my laptop without hurting myself. Luckily, that was all I needed to begin using eSession.com, a new “virtual recording studio” founded by engineer, songwriter, and Pro Tools guru Gina Fant-Saez.

Gina, as it happened, was on the phone from her studio in the Texas hill country outside Austin. She had invited me to give eSession a try, and over the course of a 45-minute training session, she showed me how it would allow me to find and communicate with top professional talent, negotiate agreements, share (and protect) files, and make payments—all the things I would normally do in a studio, but online, from anywhere. eSession promises to let anyone create world-class recordings from New York hotels, Hong Kong high-rises, or anywhere in between.

There you have it. Everything the big music label did in the past, on the artist’s laptop. More of this to come - for video, imagery, and who knows what else? All enabled by broadband access. It’s time for the big media to get used to the idea of the artists also being the producer and distributor. Maybe they’ll find their niche if they understand what the internet is really doing to their business.

An interview over at cNet that is certainly worth the read. Mr. Tiemann partakes of a spirited defense of their new CEO. Well worth the read.

Link.

The world’s largest air carrier is planning in flight Wifi trials on some transcontinental flights. If it’s to be a for fee service, you can bet there will be more of this this very soon.

American Airlines, a founding member of the global oneworld Alliance, has signed a memorandum of intent with AirCell (News - Alert), LLC, to be the first U.S. airline to test the capability of providing passengers with AirCell’s high-speed broadband connectivity. (from TMC Net)