WiMax Operator's Manual

CHAPTER 7 ■ SERVICE DEPLOYMENTS OVER PUBLIC WIRELESS MANS 155
the conferencing area (specifically, videoconferencing), and this, too, is demanding consistency
in performance far beyond anything expected in the past. If, as I anticipate, increasing
amounts of multimedia entertainment content are delivered over IP networks in the future,
then nothing less than a thoroughgoing transformation will have to occur, and a high degree of
network determinacy must become the norm, not the exception.
Wireless broadband operators, of course, must concern themselves with the here and
now, and in the sections that follow I discuss what is feasible both in terms of the capabil-
ities of the existing technologies and in terms of what is in fact supported over existing
telecommunications backbones. In many cases, local access providers will not be able to
provide service-level guarantees that are as stringent as they and their customers would like,
but it is certainly possible today to support many time-sensitive applications over a last-mile
broadband access network, including a wireless network.
But before I discuss the more demanding services in respect to quality of service (QoS), I
first cover best-effort packet services, which, at least for the near term, will be the predominant
service offerings by broadband service providers, both wireless and wireline.
Introducing Basic Access and Best-Effort
Delivery
The majority of subscribers for broadband services today are apt to request nothing more than
basic high-speed access. Such access will afford them a connection via the broadband wireless
network to an Internet point of presence that will then take them onto the public Internet.
Wireless broadband operators either can serve as independent Internet service providers
(ISPs) and manage the connection to the point of presence or can off-load Internet traffic at a
tandem switch in a telco central office and allow a third-party ISP to manage the connection to
the Internet via a large router. They can also do both, offering ISP services to those subscribers
who want them and simply providing an Internet connection to others.
In offering ISP services, broadband wireless operators will, at the least, need to maintain a
server to cache e-mail and another to handle chat and instant messaging. They may also want
to offer various value adds such as news reporting services, financial reports, and discussion
groups. They may even want to sell advertising on the network’s home page.
Space does not permit any detailed discussion of the logistics of launching and operating
an ISP, and, in the case of wireless broadband service providers, any offerings in this area will
be secondary to the speed of the connection in attracting subscribers. Generally, for the kind of
business customer who will be the target market for broadband wireless service, consumeroriented
Web content pushed to the home page will not be much of an attraction.
The broadband wireless operator may also choose to function as a specialized ISP, offering
such services as Web hosting and expedited content delivery, but this is a distinctly different
business than simply providing access and is likely to involve investments and time commitments
that are fully equal to those associated with establishing a metro area wireless access
network. Since the focus of this book is on the latter, nothing more will be said concerning
this option.
Here an extended definition of best effort and basic access is perhaps in order: Basic
access provides use of the public Internet as a pipe for connecting to the Web and coincidentally
to any remote office or business partners who are accessible through it—and little more.
The main parameter in such basic access services is sheer throughput.