Wi-LAN wins approval from FCC to sell its OFDM products into the U.S.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week granted Wi-LAN Inc a waiver that clears the way for the Calgary-based company to start selling its OFDM wireless access equipment in the lucrative U.S. market. It was previously barred from doing so because OFDM didn’t meet specific requirements related to direct sequence spread spectrum technology. The opening up of the U.S. market represents a huge boon to the small, but growing Canadian company. It already has an inventory of products to sell and no shortage of potential customers, says Wi-LAN chair and CEO Hatim Zaghloul. Demand is being expressed from both existing customers of older 2.4 GHz equipment and other companies that want to add the capabilities of OFDM to their service offering. "We didn’t market it, but people know we’re in OFDM and we’ve had requests for demos," Zaghloul told Report on Wireless. "So there is already demand there." On the other side, major customers like AIR2LAN are looking for OFDM products. Wi-LAN is predicting short-term revenue of about $1 million from OFDM sales into the U.S. Zaghloul says that, in turn, should "open the door to bigger orders in the future as trials are completed." Wi-LAN will evaluate the take rate of the initial volumes to better gauge how it moves forward with larger volume sales. "We had built (some units) for the initial (roll out) and based on the uptake of those units we will decide on the shape and cost reduction of future products in the (2.4 GHz) band," he says. Standards should emerge from U.S. certification OFDM-based equipment generates data throughput rates of about 54 Mbs compared to the maximum of 11 Mbs currently available with direct sequence spread spectrum-based gear. That advance will have an impact on the development of future standards in the long-term, explains Zaghloul. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a major player in standards development, has been keeping a close eye on evolutions in OFDM-based equipment and had previously agreed to look at OFDM as a potential standard. "I expect to see a motion next week in the IEEE meeting whereby OFDM in 802.11g will make inroads where it will become a single proposal," Zaghloul says. "And that is the beginning of wireless LANs and multimedia which is much more realistic at 2.4 GHz because of the inexpensive chips." Support from U.S. interests represent boost for company In a surprising move last October, arch rival Cisco Systems Inc lent its support behind the Wi-LAN application to get OFDM certified by the telecom regulator (ROW, Jan. 8/01). Since Cisco also makes OFDM gear, it was in its interest to support Wi-LAN’s claim. Metricom and Intersil had also added their support to the cause. At the time, proponents had urged the FCC to reverse a decision in May 2000 that denied the application. Proxim was on the record as being opposed to the FCC’s certification of OFDM for the 2.4 GHz band. Zaghloul exalts the support of all of the companies that stood behind Wi-LAN and its application. It would have been easy for the telecom regulator to ignore this small Canadian company, he says. "There is no doubt, it was phenomenal support." FCC begins process to revise rules on 2.4 GHz band In granting Wi-LAN the waiver, the FCC recognized that its rules concerning devices operating in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz needed to be updated to take into account the advent of faster and more bandwidth-efficient technologies. "Since the time spread spectrum rules were first introduced some 15 years ago, the commission has amended the rules several times to accommodate technology developments and promote new and innovative uses of the (2.4 GHz band)," the FCC writes in its May 10 decision. "It appears that our current rules may unnecessarily restrict system design that could otherwise achieve data rates of more than 20 megabits per second." It concludes: "This Further Notice proposes to revise the rules for frequency hopping spread spectrum systems operating in the 2.4 GHz band to reduce the amount of spectrum that must be used with certain types of operation, and to allow new digital transmission technologies to operate pursuant to the same rules as spread spectrum devices." However in coming to its decision to grant the waiver, the FCC wrote that it was within its right to deny the application initially, but decided to grant Wi-LAN the waiver "to facilitate the continued development and deployment of new wireless devices for businesses and consumers." The U.S regulator has given potential intervenors 75 days to make initial comments with reply comments due one month later.

Wi-LAN wins approval from FCC to sell its OFDM products into the U.S.

News | 05/14/2001 4:00 am EDT

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