| Message from Mr Eiichi Toriyama, Managing Executive Officer, Kyocera Corporation, Japan | |
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As everybody is aware, MBWA (Mobile Broadband Wireless Access) is one of the focuses of public attention
today. I think one of the reasons behind this can be attributed to the magnitude which this change will bring about.
I believe the MBWA will open up new era of people's way of life, i.e., people will get access to the internet anytime and anywhere with broadband experience. To make the best use of this, the MBWA service must provide the wider opportunities where many people can utilize. The keywords involved will be "affordability" and "adaptation". Without this consideration, the MBWA will end up with a nice service, but people are not interested in using. As one example of "affordability", the service cost people must bear must be affordable. To this end, the operators' total investment must be low. If the base station can accommodate more users keeping reasonable level of service, and if operators can utilize widely commercially available network subsystems, this will lead to investment optimization. "Adaptation" will be another key factor. Today's growing radio services have been making the spectrum availability short globally. To provide MBWA service under such circumstances, the system is required for high spectrum efficiency. I believe the iBurst system can be a solution to contend with the above conditions. Moreover, iBurst system had been commercially rolled out in over ten countries, which means field-proven. I suggest readers of this newsletter who intend to roll out the MBWA services, spend some time to study first the iBurst system before decision was made, you will find the effort worthwhile. Contacting the iBurst Association (iBA) will bring you with real experiences from the operators. Last but not least, I sincerely appreciate efforts and contribution of people who wish to promote the iBurst globally. Congratulations on the official kick-off of the iBurst Association (iBA), the not-for-profit organization that promote iBurst as preferred solution of MBWA. |
| Message from Mr Alan Knott-Craig, Managing Director, Wireless Business Solutions (Pty) Ltd, South Africa | |
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WBS started out life in 1997 as the backbone for the South African national lottery. In 2004, we selected iBurst as the best wireless broadband technology available in the world, and by 2005 South Africa had one of the first commercial iBurst networks in the world. By the end of our first year of operation we had 7,000 customers. Today we have 52,000 customers and we're growing by 3,000 every month. I recall when I joined WBS that everyone was talking about Wimax. Innumerable people warned me not to continue investing in iBurst technology because Wimax was imminent and would render iBurst redundant. If we had listened to those people we would have no network today and we would have no customers. Wimax continues to be hyped, and continues to be conspicuous by its absence anywhere in the world, whereas iBurst actually exists and provides a service that can viably compete against 3G/HSDPA and ADSL. Due to iBurst being such an efficient technology and having such a lead over its competition, WBS is proud to show profitability after less than 2 years of operation whilst 3G network operators are hoping and praying for breakeven after 5 years. The biggest obstacle we face in South Africa is acquiring enough suitable sites for base stations, which is a nice problem to have. There was much scepticism over whether iBurst would satisfy the needs of the consumer, but our experience has shown that this technology easily holds its own against the incumbents and that all we need to do is focus on service delivery. Naturally things may change in the future as other technologies emerge, however, we firmly believe that iBurst technology will be viable for the next 3 years at least. The proof of iBurst is the success of our business in South Africa. Come see for yourself! |
