WiMAX PR disaster: Airspan strikes back
This is not what WiMAX, hardware vendors, service providers and customers need at this time — a war of words between a service provider and a vendor about who screwed up.
Airspan decided to counter Buzz Broadband’s claims that the Airspan WiMAX equipment did not work in a way that I would never have expected: Airspan accused Buzz Broadband of basically being cheap.
In a marketing release, Airspan’s Chief Marketing Officer says Buzz Broadband did not invest enough money in the network and refused help: “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.”
Instead of pointing a finger at its customer, Airspan should have simply trotted out good examples of live WiMAX networks that use its equipment. Get some customer and end user testimonials. That would have been enough to show that Buzz Broadband was incompetent and under-funded. Airspan should not have fired back at its customer (or I guess, former customer now). Even if Buzz Broadband was not telling the whole story, I believe that Airspan’s response is the wrong one at this time.
We all know by now that when it comes to deploying new wireless technology there are always surprises, some of which are unexpected and undesirable. A lot of vendors oversell the technology, not necessarily because they are being evil but because that is what they know under laboratory conditions or trial situations, not in live deployments that involve end users. Because of these unexpected results, often the service provider has to cough up more money to provide fixes. These can include adding more equipment, getting more personnel to tweak the network, etc. Cost overruns are nothing new. Maybe Buzz Broadband should have accounted for those, maybe they did and gave up in the end.
What I’d like to know is this: would the fixes suggested by Airspan have helped?
Loading ...
This type of situation in the marketplace is a classic example of the operator not understanding the value of a true, “paid”, engineering design and the manufacturer not “demanding” one be completed before the sale of the equipment to the operator. Knowing Airspan’s equipment and many other manufacturers, I do believe the latency and speed issues due to network provisioning but do not believe the range issues, unless, major line-of-sight blockage existed.
Until the Wimax and Wifi industry understands the value of upfront engineering and design, these things will happen. In contrast, the Public Safety Wireless Communications market has been spending millions on system design and testing for years, on each truncked radio system that has been deployed. hey take it seriously and understand the value of the upfront work. The sames goes for the Cellular Industry.
Allowing anyone just to “slap up” equipment has been plaguing the broadband industry for years now.
[...] has hit back against the CEO of Buzz Broadband, claiming that Buzz was cheap and that its failure to invest enough in the network led to the latter’s failure. Buzz [...]
Garth Freeman is a businessman - Airspan unfortunately has now told the world’s operator’s don’t tick us off or we’ll slander and libel you…tsk, tsk….
What is scoop with Airspan? Are they in a spin? Or is Airspan trying to lash out against educated opinions on the subject?
Laz Sanchez
Alarius Networks LLC
http://alariusnetworks.com