After Buzz Broadband CEO Garth Freeman trash-talked WiMAX at a recent industry conference, former hardware partner Airspan - who Freeman claims had a “quick and negative reaction” when he criticised indoor reception last year - have spoken out in defence of the wireless technology and their part in what the Buzz CEO called ”a disaster”.  In a statement by Airspan’s Chief Marketing Officer, Declan Byrne, the company suggests the Australian telco’s problems with WiMAX were primarily due to insufficient investment, cost-cutting and a refusal to bring in third-party support.  Challenging claims that indoor performance decayed a mere 400m from the base station and that outdoor non-line of sight performance was “non-existent” beyond 2km, Airspan claim Buzz chose cheaper micro-cell units with known range tradeoffs rather than more expensive macro-cell devices.

“[W]e exhausted all avenues to help this customer re-engineer their core network and resolve these service issues. In the end, with Mr. Freeman rejecting help from the outside, the technical and financial resources of Buzz Broadband were not sufficient to deploy a functioning network to the satisfaction of its customers. We regret the distress caused by Buzz’ poor network architecture decisions to the customers”Declan Byrne, Chief Marketing Officer, Airspan

As for quality of service (QoS), Byrne blames Buzz Broadband’s backhaul network - the core connection between the WiMAX network and the internet - which he describes as “considerably under-dimensioned”; Airspan apparently offered to pay for third-party analysis of the QoS issues this may have caused, which they claim Buzz refused.

The rebuttal comes as the third Russian WiMAX network in three months received significant VC funding, making a total of $75m invested in the wireless technology there in the past quarter.

Marketing Release:

Date: 3/24/2008
Re: Buzz Broadband
Public Statements Concerning WiMAX and Airspan by the CEO of Australian WISP, Buzz Broadband

This week, at a WiMAX conference in Thailand, the CEO Buzz Broadband of Australia railed at the audience that WiMAX was a “disaster”. CEO Garth Freeman made several disparaging remarks about the range of WiMAX systems and their ability to carry VoIP traffic.
Buzz Broadband deployed Airspan MicroMAXd, ProST, and EasyST equipment to around 200 users, the same equipment that is installed in many of the 100 or so other Airspan WiMAX deployments. In addition to broadband services, Buzz Broadband intended also to offer VoIP services to its subscribers. Mr. Freeman’s recent statements highlighted two complaints: the range of the solution, and the quality of service (QoS) capabilities for voice traffic.
With regard to range, although Airspan offers both micro-cell and macro-cell base station solutions, Buzz Broadband opted to go with the less-expensive micro-cell base stations in order to reduce cost. This was a well understood tradeoff of cost vs. range. In support of larger cell radii, particularly in support of indoor desktop CPE devices, Airspan offers the HiperMAX base station, which offers the best link budget in the industry for an 802.16d-2004 solution.
Regarding QoS for VoIP, MicroMAX certainly offers appropriate QoS for wire-line quality voice support, but, as an access technology, can only do so for the portion of the link between the user device and the base station. In the case of Buzz Broadband, we know that there were significant under-provisioning issues in the core network which connected the Airspan equipment to the Internet. Very early in the relationship, Airspan technical services determined that Buzz’ backhaul network was considerably under-dimensioned (again to save cost) and lacked sufficient QoS, and that these factors were the direct cause of VoIP quality issues in the network. Airspan even went so far as to offer to fund a third-party analysis to help Buzz understand these issues. Both Airspan’s help and third party assistance were refused by Mr. Freeman.
At Airspan, we pride ourselves on our customer service and excellent products. In the case of Mr. Freeman’s company Buzz Broadband, we exhausted all avenues to help this customer re-engineer their core network and resolve these service issues. In the end, with Mr. Freeman rejecting help from the outside, the technical and financial resources of Buzz Broadband were not sufficient to deploy a functioning network to the satisfaction of its customers. We regret the distress caused by Buzz’ poor network architecture decisions to the customers in need of Broadband Internet access and VoIP services.
It is unfortunate that Mr. Freeman felt the need to broadcast his difficulties in such a public fashion. WiMAX has proven to be enormously successful from a technical standpoint, and Buzz’ allegations, even when so easily dismissed, are a distraction to the WiMAX industry and ultimately a disservice to the millions of satisfied broadband wireless access consumers worldwide.
If you should have any questions regarding this or any other concern, please don’t hesitate to contact me at Airspan on 561 893-8643 or dbyrne@airspan.com.
Best Regards,
Declan Byrne Chief Marketing Officer Airspan Networks, Inc.