During a recent trip to Japan, I talked extensively with UQ, a mobile WiMAX operators that 14 months after commercial launch boasts 65% of population coverage and over 330,000 subscribers. Their business model and approach to the market is quite innovative.

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These days all the attention in the US wireless industry seems to be on the growth of data traffic. And yet, despite all the growth, it is voice that US mobile subscribers seem to love more than most in the world--and comparatively consume the same if not less data.

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Just after the previous blog entry, T-Mobile announced that it will make UMA available on Android phones. Actually the press release does not mention UMA: the new name for the service Wi-Fi Calling, but it is still based on Kineto's UMA solution.

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UMA extends cellular coverage to areas where only Wi-Fi is available. It allows you make and receive calls at home even if you have no cellular coverage in a completely seamless way. Surprisingly, it is not yet available for Android phones, but this may change soon.

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Mobile broadband requires operators to change the way they manage data services. The transition to a 4G IP network will give them the tools to manage traffic actively and achieve three goals:

• Increase network efficiency and capacity, lowering transport costs
• Offer service plans that are more flexible, fair, and personalized
• Maximize revenues from subscribers, applications and content providers, and vertical applications

We just published a white paper sponsored by Cisco on the transition to 4G IP networks.

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Clearwire introduced a pre-paid service, Rover. Will it help make pre-paid data plans mainstream in the US?

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What if cellular data plans were not for devices but for the subscribers using them? And if multiple devices were allowed on the same plan? Could subscribers use more devices to connect and attach an higher value to their data plan?

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Some WiMAX operators have indicated their intention to move to LTE or their interest in transitioning to the new technology. A transition from WiMAX to LTE is possible, and in some cases it will be a straightforward and relatively inexpensive network upgrade, but in all cases it will require good planning from the operator. In this column published in FierceBroadbandWireless we discuss what it takes for WiMAX operators to move to LTE.

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I spend a lot of time talking to wireless operators and, in preparation for a webinar on Connected Planet sponsored by Motorola, I asked myself what are the features that makes a WISP successful. I do not think there is a single factor or a handful of them.

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The wireless industry has been undoubtedly pleased by the Obama endorsement of the FCC recommendation to make an additional 500 MHz of spectrum available for wireless broadband in the United States over the next ten years. Increased spectrum availability for wireless broadband is a top requirement to accommodate data traffic growth. According to Cisco's VNI index, data traffic will grow 16 times and video traffic 20 times by 2014 wireless broadband. The introduction of new wireless interfaces like HSPA+, WiMAX or LTE will bring some relief, but may be at best capable of accommodating half of the additional traffic due to increased spectrum efficiency.

However, to keep up with data demand and to avoid massive investment, operators in the U.S. and in most other countries will need to do more than roll out an LTE network in the spectrum they currently have. Infrastructure sharing is one of the tools that operators have to increase utilization of their spectrum assets, provide better coverage and throughput to their customers, and to reduce capex and opex.

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