Gordon Lindsay, European product manager for
Broadcom's wireless devices division, gives his view of the market
potential for WiMAX, WiFi and UWB technologies
EW: Will VoIP over WiFi phones become an
alternative to mobile phones?
Gordon Lindsay: Broadcom does not see Wi-Fi phones
replacing cellular phones. They are a more a feature-rich and
portable replacement for the cordless phone found in homes today.
Wi-Fi phones provide limited mobility, as users still need a
hot-spot for connectivity compared to the ubiquitous coverage for
cellular. However, Wi-Fi phones are great for web based services
such as email, video, location and presence. First generation
dual-mode cellular phones, meaning phones with both cellular and
Wi-Fi technology, have just started to emerge from tier one
manufacturers; it will be interesting to see how users react to
them.
EW: Does WiMAX have a future? If so,
where?
Gordon Lindsay: WiMAX has generated a lot interest
and is being evaluated by the industry, Broadcom included. There
are other communications technologies such as 3G and 4G cellular
that offer very similar benefits and which have the advantage of
being built on existing cellular infrastructure. Broadcom is
monitoring the development of WiMAX and the business cases
supporting it, as well as continually checking the interest of our
customers, which to date has not justified a major commitment to
the technology.
EW: Does MIMO-enhanced WiFi add anything
meaningful to the consumer compared to 802.11g? If so, what?
Gordon Lindsay: MIMO-enhanced Wi-Fi (or 802.11n)
will provide very meaningful improvements in both range and
throughput for wireless LAN consumers. Broadcom’s Intensi-fi
products are now demonstrating wireless throughput of greater than
160 Mb/s in real-world environments, which represents a five times
increase compared to 802.11g products. 802.11n will allow consumers
to wirelessly transmit multiple streams of high definition video
content around their homes.
EW: Does UWB have any practical uses?
Gordon Lindsay: UWB will basically serve as a
high-speed PAN cable replacement or the broadband version of
Bluetooth. Bluetooth is perfect for applications such as wireless
headsets, keyboards and mice. However, in situations where you want
to transmit a lot of data over a short distance and in a short
period of time, UWB kicks-in. For example, if you have a Gigabyte
of photos or perhaps a movie on your mobile phone, it would take
some time for standard Bluetooth to move them over to your computer
(BT with Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) works at around 3Mb/s). UWB will
work at greater than 400Mb/s, which would make short work of that
one GB archive.
EW: Is FTTH going to be a significant (i.e.
$1bn+) market for chips anytime soon?
Gordon Lindsay: We do not believe FTTH will be a
$1bn SoC market anytime soon. A substantial amount of
infrastructure and network architecture investment is required by
carriers to move fiber-to-the-home, making the overall deployment
and market penetration slower than other potential approaches.
While we see this service as very compelling in the future and
several major carriers are actively assessing FTTH, the SoC market
opportunity remains below $1bn in the near term.
For more content relating to WiMax, please visit our guide to
WiMax