When a specific application of a technology threatens the status quo and long held assumptions in the market, forces may align to repel the threat. Using the bully pulpit their power brings, the forces ensure the disruptive technology gets distorted, discredited, and dismissed until the assertions become conventional wisdom. The opposing groups may also likely include dependent members along the entire value chain and inadvertently perhaps even the market makers on Wall Street.

Main Street, however, may find the business case for the application so compelling that the technology gains adoption anyway. These adopters discover this technology allows them to keep a larger portion of their revenue crop instead of yielding it to the market pillars. This is a revolutionary economic development for the adopters, akin to the serf winning freedom from his incumbent lord. The message gets shared and momentum builds at the grass roots level. Eventually, even those originally aligned against the new technology begin to pilot the technology seeking to address unique problems. But unfortunately the negative myth may endure.

This was the story of license-exempt (unlicensed) wireless access. Conventional wisdom expected the large service providers and established carriers to own the broadband dollar. Consequently, these providers and other purveyors of xDSL and cable technologies, as well as the major carriers seeking deployment of licensed fixed wireless systems, have historically dismissed license exempt wireless application of wireless technology. Since the vendor base is diverse and the original adopters of unlicensed were an unaligned mass of small, often rural ISPs, small telcos and others, there was no concerted effort to dispel negative perceptions.

Last month this changed when the well-respected Wireless Communications Association International (WCA) took a major step to support and recognize license exempt. Under the WCA's sponsorship a group of market visionaries created the License Exempt Alliance (LEA). Chaired by Jai Baghat of Air2LAN, the LEA's ambitious mission can be summed in 3 tenets:

1. To assert and promote the efficacy of license exempt to the market, the press, the financial community and the public
2. To advance the concept of frequency coordination with the adopters and the vendor community
3. To protect and preserve unlicensed spectrum

The LEA has assembled an Executive Committee of technology evangelists (see side bar) including representatives from the vendor community, service providers, and the Communications Industry's legal establishment.

The LEA faces some tough challenges, especially with respect to frequency coordination issues. But the goals are important because today unlicensed technologies are being adopted and deployed on a scale widely ignored by the press and the analyst community. Further, the ignorance and myths surrounding license exempt are astounding. For example, did you know the following?

* Wireless LAN technology (WLAN) such as 802.11b products and unlicensed wireless Access technology (including FWA, BWA and mobile) - and their markets - are not the same.
* Even in today's capital constrained market, sales by makers of unlicensed products look relatively healthy in comparison with those entirely focused on licensed spectrum. For example, Alvarion's (BreezeCom + Floware) sales through Q1and Q2 are approximately $74M - a healthy increase over last years respective sales (Alvarion + Floware). WaveRider posted triple digit gains ($2.2M for Q2 2001) over Q2 2000. Compare this with license product-centric Netro which saw sales decline from $15.5M for Q2 2000 to just $2.1M for Q2 2001.
* The market leaders in unlicensed estimate well over 1,000 ISP's, CLECs, telcos, and now carriers have deployed pilots or are rolling out license exempt wireless canopies in the markets. Alvarion alone estimates a base of some 600 such service providers in the US alone and they have an approximate CPE install base of 350,000.
* Recent rulings by the FCC (such as permitting WiLAN's to market it's patented OFDM product in 2.4GHz) and emerging standards such as 802.16 Wireless High Speed Unlicensed Metropolitan Area Networks (Wireless HUMAN) open up avenues for new ways to exploit license exempt spectrum.
* The failure of businesses deploying xDSL systems has accelerated license exempt deployments to fill the last mile bandwidth void.
* It is widely accepted that the demise of Metricom, which uses license exempt spectrum in the 900MHz band, was not a failure of the technology.
* The demand for bandwidth and high speed Internet services in the last mile continue to increase even while a glut exists at the backbone of Information Super Highway.
* Deployments in licensed spectrum have been plagued with high spectrum costs, spectrum allocation delays and bureaucratic tangles. License exempt, by contrast can be deployed virtually overnight and enjoys a much shorter ROI.
* Bluetooth systems (with only short, low power cells) do NOT pose a significant interference threat with outdoor license exempt systems. Same with 2.4GHz phone.
* Mature unlicensed Access systems are highly secure in comparison to 802.11b WLAN technology (which has received frequent press about high vulnerability).
* Political momentum to bridge the "digital divide" continues to mount and exempt systems are being aggressively deployed without taxpayer expense in the very markets where wireline companies claim they cannot serve without subsidies.
* Some have claimed 2.4GHz is too crowded in many markets for them to invest in such systems - they fear interference. While perhaps true someday, this logically means that such a market is already being served by one or more providers so no digital gap exists there.
* New "0 truck roll" technologies by Alvarion, Cirronet, WaveRider and others are creating even more attractive ROI models.
* License technologies enjoy no greater benefit in overcoming non line-of-sight issues and even less in overcoming non-LOS issues do to foliage.

The majority of the market remains unaware or resistant to these facts, but for these and many other reasons the existence and efficacy of license exempt is unassailable. Appropriately, the WCA has commissioned the LEA to act as a shepherd and lead license exempt out of the shadows. If the WCA - the wireless industry's most respected association - can recognize the vitality of this market, is time the rest of the telecommunications industry see the light as well.

About the Author
By Patrick Leary is Director of Strategic Communications with Alvarion, North America and Executive Committee Member of Wireless Communications Association's License Exempt Alliance. The author may be reached with questions or comments via email at pleary@breezecom.com