Mobile Operators

As in North America and Europe, incumbent telcos in emerging market regions such as Central America have deployed DSL over copper phone lines, and cable operators have coaxial cable infrastructures in place. The cable footprint, however, is often limited due to the high cost and difficulty of installation in old and densely populated city areas. New, broadband service provider entrants must, therefore, either deploy or lease copper or cable resources or choose another method of bringing network services to market.

In 2002, Liberty Technologies, then exclusively an infrastructure provider to ISPs in Panama, was assigned a portion of the 3.5-GHz spectrum by the Panamanian government. Liberty launched a residential network service based on Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) wireless networking technology. The company determined that deploying a wired or cable service would be prohibitively expensive and would not allow for a competitively priced broadband service. Instead, a wireless network could be deployed quickly and inexpensively and had a promising future as a WAN access technology.

In the next four years, as WiMAX technology standards and associated products and applications evolved, Liberty worked closely with Cisco to explore a business case and upgrade path that would encompass the newer, wireless technology.

Liberty wanted to be able to offer a choice of different access speeds; integrate services with chipsets embedded in third-party laptops, PDAs, and handsets; and take advantage of many other standards-based features. The improved performance of WiMAX, with higher modulation for better spectral efficiency and throughput and more efficient and cost-effective use of the network, also made the technology very appealing.

The migration to WiMAX was accomplished in July 2007 with a software upgrade to the 802.16e WiMAX standard. Liberty deployed 24 wireless base stations around Panama City and in two neighboring cities in the WiMAX Profile B architecture using the Cisco^® BWX 8305 Base Station, Cisco BWX 8305 Base Station Antenna, and the Cisco Broadband Wireless Gateway (BWG) on Cisco 7300 Series Routers. The coverage area is shown in Figure 1. Note that the figure uses Liberty's WiMAX service mascot, the space alien, to show the areas in Panama City where coverage is available.

The 24 base stations deployed by Liberty utilize beamforming, a technology that can double the system throughput for a mobile WiMAX network while at the same time reducing the number of cell sites needed by nearly half. This coverage is achieved by "beaming" a signal directly to each user instead of blanketing an entire coverage area. The Cisco BWG provides critical Mobile WiMAX access service network (ASN) services, including device and subscriber authentication, mobility management, mobile IP foreign agent functionality, encryption key distribution, and advanced quality of service (QoS) management.

"The initial move to WiMAX was more for our benefit and wasn't evident to our customers," says Liberty Chief Executive Officer, Moises Abadi. "Because there were no service calls necessary to upgrade the base stations, the operational costs were low. And the centralized nature of the system makes it much easier to troubleshoot and fix. Redundancy is another benefit. We now also have the ability to support third-party modems." The Profile C network upgrade included replacement of the existing Cisco 7300 Series Routers with Cisco 7600 Series Routers as a platform for the new ASN gateway on a Cisco Service Application Module for IP (SAMI) blade.

Liberty sells the easy-to-install WiMAX modems at a discount at retail stores such as supermarkets, drug stores, and electronics stores. The modems can also be ordered through the Wipet website (www.wipet.com). Prepaid and postpaid service plans for days or months are available, some offering partial rebates off the cost of the modem. Consumers can also choose the broadband access speeds that they prefer: 128 kbps, 256 kbps 512 kbps, or 1.5 Mbps.

Alongside the WiMAX service, Liberty's Wisper HotZone Wi-Fi service, utilizing Cisco Linksys Business Series Wi-Fi routers and prepaid service via a web interface, has brought in new customers looking for broadband Internet access in restaurants, hotels, airports, and area hospitals.

In January 2008, Liberty re-branded the residential WiMAX service "Wipet," using the song "Whip It" by the U.S. technopop group Devo as the theme in a series of TV and online ads. A fast-moving space alien was created to be the mascot (Figure 2) for broadcast, print, and billboard advertising.

Thus far, Liberty has been promoting the portability rather than the mobility of WiMAX, because consumers can easily take their modems from place to place, including on boats on the bay. In 2009, Liberty plans to upgrade to WiMAX Release 7.1, which will allow for mobile access to the Wipet service via USB modems or wireless cards in laptops, PDAs, and handsets.

Liberty is now testing voice over WiMAX and is also in discussions with a satellite TV provider to bundle triple-play data, voice, and TV service.

Since 2002, Liberty has maintained a close relationship with Cisco and serves as an Early Field Trial (EFT) customer. Two field sites are provided for testing of new WiMAX and Wi-Fi solutions in the dense, radio-frequency-intensive environment of Panama City. And since deploying its WiMAX network, Liberty has hosted visits from managers of other service providers throughout South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Russia, who are considering the technology for their markets.

"We're happy to help spread the word about WiMAX; that it is economical and practical, to help make it a credible broadband option throughout the world," says Salomon Zayat, COO of Liberty Technologies "Especially with the new mobility features, we think the market will grow and that mobile WiMAX will be seen as a major access technology."

To find out more about Cisco broadband wireless, go to: http://www.cisco.com/go/wimax

To find out more about Liberty Technologies Wipet WiMAX Service, go to:http://www.wipet.com