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WiMAX and Wireless Networks
Introduction | How WiMAX Works | Poised for Success | Getting Started
WiMAX Poised for Success
"WiMAX has established itself as a proven, cost effective technology, which offers an operator the broadest flexibility to address their customers needs in the marketplace today, especially where the demand exists for high bandwidth services." said John Bonadurer III, General Manager WiMAX, Brightstar. "
"Embracing connectivity solutions and standards such as WiMAX in emerging markets like China is critical to competing in the continuously evolving globalcommunications industry," said XJ Wang, vice president of Yankee Group Asia-Pacific Research.
Yankee Group has predicted that the Chinese WiMAX market will reach 8.39 million users in 2011, almost 7 times the 1.25 million users they forecast for 2009 (the first year of significant WiMAX development in China). Of the 8.39 million users in 2011, nomadic and portable broadband access users will lead the Chinese market, accounting for 46% of the market in 2011. Mobile broadband and low-cost fixed wireless access services will come in second and third, accounting for 43% and 11% of the market, respectively.
A recent research conducted by Infonetics Research concluded that China, India, South America, Central & Eastern Europe, Russia and the United States have strong potential for WiMAX because they have huge populations and their demands for broadband aren’t being met by existing technologies.
Some report highlights are:
• China No doubt targeting this opportunity, Huawei has opened a WiMAX Interoperability Testing (IOT) laboratory in Beijing, in partnership with Intel, the latest stage in their four-year WiMAX partnership. Huawei says it has over 2,000 engineers engaged in WiMAX operations.
• India Major operators (BSNL, Tata, Bharti Airtel, etc) are actively pursuing WiMAX and deployments have been accelerated.
• Brazil WiMAX has an opportunity to become the primary broadband network in Brazil, where the number of WiMAX subscribers is forecast to skyrocket from 184,000 in 2008 to almost 8 million in 2013.
• Russia Challenged by geography, a dispersed population, pent up demand for broadband, and a population able to pay for services; there are currently more than 10 WiMAX networks in operation in Russia. Alcatel-Lucent is currently building a WiMAX network to cover more than 1,000 Russian cities and towns.
• United States Bolstered by an improving economy and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which earmarks $7.2 billion to broadband-related projects, Yankee Group projects that WiMAX subscriptions in North America will increase from 1.0 million in 2009 to 13.4 million in 2015, a 53 percent CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate).
According to Companies and Markets’ report "Global WiMAX Market Analysis", WiMAX has tremendous potential to offer global standardized broadband wireless platform. Many countries across the globe will adopt WiMAX to facilitate rapid economic development. As a result, the number of WiMAX users is forecast to grow at a CAGR of over 87% between 2010 and 2012.
Their research also reveals that, by 2012 the Asia-Pacific region will lead the number of global WiMAX users accounting for over 45% of the total user base, followed by North America and Europe. Places like Asia-Pacific are expected to have major growth as these countries are deploying the technology more rapidly. Government support and operators’ initiatives to provide faster internet in remote places is also fostering growth into the WiMAX market.