Clearwire and Aicent team up for international WiMAX roaming

As more and more WiMAX networks come on-line in the States and worldwide, and they begin to take over the burden of carrying a telecoms network, they will need to become interconnected on a global level. Clearwire and Aicent are today boasting what they claim is the first successful roaming connection between two WiMAX networks.

Who are the players here?

Clearwire is a wireless internet company, mostly owned by Sprint Nextel. The company has been serving broadband in the US and Europe since 2003, and is the biggest proponent of WiMAX in the US. Over the last year, Clearwire has created a number of WiMAX networks in cities across the States. While the overall population served by Clearwire WiMAX is still relatively small, it is still the largest 4G wireless provider in America.

Aicent, on the other hand, basically specialises in enabling telecoms operators to use Internet Protocol technology to run their networks instead of older fashioned mobile networks. This includes mobile data and internet services, SMS, MMS and voice. Aicent refers to it as providing “wireless communications services to mobile operators”.

What have they done?

Using Aicent technology, Clearwire connected a CLEAR 4G WiMAX username and password to a WiMAX network in Taiwan. The American WiMAX account was able to access 4G services through a network from a different country - pretty old hat for mobile, but the first time it has been accomplished using WiMAX.

From the release:

Ali Tabassi, Clearwire`s Senior Vice President of Global Ecosystem and Standards: “The future promise of WiMAX stretches beyond national borders to offer mobile data users the ability to connect wirelessly, at broadband speeds, wherever they may travel across the globe. The ability of WiMAX operators to work cooperatively in order to create seamless, simple and reliable international interoperability, as we have successfully demonstrated through Aicent`s facilities, will be crucial to realizing the tremendous social and economic potential of a truly connected world.”

Lynn Liu, president and CEO of Aicent: “The entire communications industry stands on the precipice of immense change. People are traveling with great ease and more often than not bringing with them devices that need to connect to networks. There are important technical challenges to overcome to enable people to have `anywhere, anytime access` to these important, often critical, data networking connections. Aicent is fortunate to work with leaders like Clearwire to bring the innovations that will ultimately result in a worldwide ubiquitous WiMAX network.”

What we think?

While it’s great that WiMAX is showing progress, this release does raise a few questions. Most importantly will be user-end charges. Roaming is still one of those areas where operators squeeze as much money from their customers as possible. I have to wonder if Clearwire and other dealers in WiMAX will see these early days as an opportunity to levy massive roaming charges.