Nokia stops making only WiMax device...

[SL-10]

Nokia stops making only WiMax device

Thu Jan 8, 2009 4:33pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE5071UD20090108

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top mobile phone maker Nokia said on Thursday it had ended production of its only mobile device using the U.S.-centered WiMax technology, another blow for the struggling wireless technology.

WiMax has been competing for the status of next generation mobile technology, but has largely lost the battle to Long-Term Evolution (LTE).

"We have ramped down the N810 WiMax Edition tablet. It has reached the end of its lifecycle," said a Nokia spokesman. Nokia unveiled the model only nine months ago, while usually even the most trendy models have a shelf life of well over a year.

Canada's Nortel Networks Corp has said LTE will be the most likely upgrade path for about 80 percent of the world's existing mobile phone providers, with others going for WiMax.

Nokia did not rule out introducing further WiMax phones in the future.

"We will continue to follow the technology and its evolution," the spokesman said.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

[strat]

I have a history of being the last one to leave a wireless data service party. I've had Mobitex service from RAM/BellSouth Wireless Data/Earthlink, Ricochet, and ARDIS/Motient/Earthlink over the years.

I have been a happy user of a Nokia N800 for a couple years now, and recently found myself in the right part of Maryland, so I picked up an N810 WiMAX Edition. It really is a delightful device, but not for everyone. There's a growing body of software (It's running Maemo Linux, and Nokia puts a fair amount of money and time into supporting the developer community), but it is not polished in the sense that personal information management applications "just work" and sync with everything under the sun. I suspect that will change in time.

That having been said, there are some exquisitely spiffy apps out there for it, including a client that will put a real-time bluetooth OBDII code reader display for automobile stats/gauges up on your dash. In fact, you can put the device into a sort of backward video mode and have it reflect off of your windshield as a heads-up display.

I am in Virginia and know that XOHM service has been up in this market in a test mode for years now. I decided to give it a shot. To date, I have to say that the in-building coverage in Northern Virginia has not been impressive, specifically, Herndon, Tysons/Vienna/McLean and Fairfax. Many office buildings have silvered windows, so I'm not entirely surprised at that.

In the car on the road, it's hit-or-miss. Going down Fairfax County Parkway, it's feast or famine. I'll get a pegged signal strength then almost nothing in the course of a 15-minute trip from 66 to Herndon.

I love the N8xx platform, and have other personal data sources, so that's not a show stopper, and I am looking forward to the launch of Clear in the DC/VA market. I just hope there's not some firmware incompatibility with the WiMax service.

Nokia's pulling this device at this time is not a crisis from my perspective, nor unexpected. They were trying to do a coordinated launch with Xohm, and the network buildout/launch was delayed. From a support standpoint, I wouldn't want to be a device maker trying to pay the overhead of keeping that specific/coupled product SKU alive, knowing that a new network launch is in the works and presumably new device designs as well.

[kalibar]

Man, how did I miss hearing about this? This definitely sucks, it's been a hope of mine that Nokia would start working together with Sprint and cranking out hot-hot CDMA S60 smartphones for them. The WiMax N810 was the one device that sort of brdiged the gap between Nokia and my favorite carrier.

Hopefully they have something else in the works, though. They always do.

[SL-10]

Man, how did I miss hearing about this? This definitely sucks, it's been a hope of mine that Nokia would start working together with Sprint and cranking out hot-hot CDMA S60 smartphones for them. The WiMax N810 was the one device that sort of brdiged the gap between Nokia and my favorite carrier.

Hopefully they have something else in the works, though. They always do.

You just need to visit SU more is all.;)

I try to post interesting tidbits like this every so often.:D

[Dubspoon]

I'm waiting to see if they polish it up more and bring it back out.

[TextMailManiac]

The article is so ridiculous. WiMax, which is available in numerous countries today, is "struggling."

LTE on the other hand, which doesn't have a single deployment and hasn't had all of its standards finalized yet, is presented as the end-all of cellular... despite the fact that not only does it not exist in tangible form, but it's unlikely to be deployed in Europe for YEARS due to all the debt still outstanding for recent 3G rollouts.

One could just as easily say "Nokia pulls back from 4G" and note that "nascent technology LTE is in much worse shape, since no devices have been created at all for that technology to date."

Finally, the article is inaccurate in describing the Nokia device as the "only" WiMax device. There are aircards and base stations, both of which qualify as devices.

[SL-10]

Man, how did I miss hearing about this? This definitely sucks, it's been a hope of mine that Nokia would start working together with Sprint and cranking out hot-hot CDMA S60 smartphones for them. The WiMax N810 was the one device that sort of brdiged the gap between Nokia and my favorite carrier.

Hopefully they have something else in the works, though. They always do.

It doesn't seem to be any for WiMAX. Only for LTE networks...

http://gigaom.com/2009/03/04/nokia-plans-lte-devices-for-2010/

Nokia Plans LTE Devices for 2010

Stacey Higginbotham | Wednesday, March 4, 2009 | 2:01 PM PT

A Nokia executive said today that the company has committed to LTE as its preferred network for devices, and plans to launch devices for those networks in2010 . James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing at Nokia, speaking at a PCCA meeting held in Grapevine, Texas, declined to detail what type of devices the handset maker would launch, but said they would be data intensive.

Perhaps we should expect that Nokia laptop, or something similar to the tablet Nokia pulled for the Clear WiMAX network this year. Harper also declined to say which carrier would carry such devices, which makes sense, given that it’s still early days for deployments of LTE networks. Just one or two carriers are planning network deployments by next year.

Harper also sold WiMAX up the river, with more than half of the slides in his presentation detailing how and why LTE is the “preferred mobile broadband technology after HSPA.” Harper said the backwards compatibility and lack of a clear road map forward were the primary drawbacks to WiMAX.

“WiMAX has some place in the market, but we do believe it’s a niche play,” Harper says. That’s bad news for Clearwire and Sprint, which combined their spectrum last year to develop a WiMAX network. But he could be on to something, as that network seems to have stalled.

[grndslm]

Bummer. This place is full of depressing news for Sprint fans.

[carcarx]

I think it's going to be depressing for LTE fans, too. LTE is only for data and this is alarming a bunch of companies who are trying a post-standard try at getting a "circuit switched" like service for voice. The current approach is to switch voice to 3G or 2G networks.

http://gigaom.com/2009/03/10/in-the-race-to-lte-kineto-talks-up-voice/

Since WiMax and LTE are both OFDM based, what's applicable for LTE is also applicable for WiMax.

[Dubspoon]

Samsung has replacement for it that is supposed to be Clear branded called the Mondi

[mdassad]

Samsung has replacement for it that is supposed to be Clear branded called the Mondi

Yep, here it goes:

http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=15085&news=Samsung+Mondi+WiMAX+Clearwire