2008 February 7

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07/02/2008

Symposium “WiMAX: from theory to practice and business”
The report 
  
The WiMAX Symposium was the first FITCE.be event in 2008 and was successfully held on February 7th in Brussels at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In total 91 engineers, managers, lawyers, academics and industry staff personnel, coming from Belgium, Germany, France and Luxembourg attended the Symposium devoted to the wireless technology of WiMAX. The Symposium, “WiMAX: from theory to practice and business”, consisted of 5 lectures by 4 experts belonging to the top industries active in the development and deployment of WiMAX and of a general fundamental overview of the theory and technology of WiMAX given by Prof. Leo Van Biesen from the VUB, who also hosted the event.



Ir. José Van Ooteghem, President of FITCE Belgium, welcomed the attendants. Prof. Leo Van Biesen introduced the well loaded agenda and gave the opening lecture entitled: “Survey of Theory and Technology concepts in Fixed and Mobile WiMAX”. In his presentation he demystified WiMAX by explaining clearly the theories which drive the standards of the WiMAX technologies. He focused his lecture on the properties of fixed and mobile WiMAX, gave examples of system-on-chip solutions and compared WiMAX with competing available and future technologies within 3G mobile technologies, such as LTE, and within the IEEE 802 standardisation solutions, i.e. with WiFi and MobileFi.


 
Mr. Vincent Briquet, Product Marketing Manager in Mobile Access of Alcatel-Lucent in France, continued with the lecture “WiMAX development and deployment experience”. Using data from industrial pilot projects and commercially deployed networks based on WiMAX, Mr. Briquet very clearly exposed the advantages, challenges and real-time performance of this technology in wireless MAN. He also illustrated the benefits of the adaptive antennas in beam forming at the base station as well as at the subscriber station premises.
 
Luis Martins, Business Development Manager SP Solutions of CISCO, concluded the first part of the Symposium with an interesting lecture entitled: “Positioning of WiFi Mesh and WiMAX technologies”. First, he compared WiFi with WiMAX from the point of view of IPR, spectrum allocation and licenses, the ecosystem of suppliers and the availability of client services. He continued with a survey of WiMAX profiles and an in depth study of WiFi Mesh. He concluded his comparison of WiFi Mesh with WiMAX by looking at the distinct IP protocols in both technologies.

After the short coffee break, Mr. Steven Van Deun of Nokia Siemens Networks approached WiMAX as a business for operators and service providers with an excellent lecture entitled: “WiMAX services and related business case examples by Nokia Siemens Networks”.  He came up with figures for the ARPU, CAPEX and OPEX for some specific cases of deployment of WiMAX networks, of which an imaginary, but realistic greenfield operator in Belgium! Two scenarios were modelled:
 Mobile data for broadband access everywhere (sub urban ranging);
 Fixed portable bundle with CPE & portable laptop (sub urban and rural areas).

Finally, Mr. Willem Deleus of Tyco Electronics, gave the audience a clear insight in the deployment of WiMAX for public safety applications. After sketching the evolution of data communications in public safety and presenting a survey of applications of the latter, he resumed by motivating WiMAX as the broadband technology of choice for public safety and presented in an exemplary way 3 reference cases, all situated in the U.S.A.



The Symposium continued with a very interactive round of  “Questions and Answers” between the enthusiastic participants and the panel of speakers. After this lively and revealing discussion, the President of FITCE Belgium thanked the speakers for their excellent, well balanced and complementary presentations and the audience for their interest and active participation. He also expressed the hope to be able to welcome everybody again at some future event of FITCE Belgium and invited all participants to a well organised 'networking and get-together' party, where local Belgian beers, fine wines and soft drinks and tasty appetizers encouraged all to further exchange views and opinions and firing more questions in a friendly, cosy atmosphere... 


Acknowledgement
These members of the Board of FITCE.be organised the symposium : Leo Van Biesen, Piet De Meester, Joannes De Wilde, Thomas Reynaert, Marc Vancoppenolle, David De Klerck, Walter Van Hemeledonck, Frank De Reymaeker, Luc Vanbecelaere. 
 

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