Linksys tipped to enter WiMAX CPE market
Among all the claims and counter claims of the WiMAX and 3G/HSPA camps is the claim that, thanks to higher volumes, HSPA user devices will be much cheaper. The WiMAX camp argues otherwise, and the entry of a very large player like Linksys in the home/SOHO networking market would certainly drive prices down.
Very firmly in the 3G corner in this debate is Ericsson and putting the case to me some weeks ago (before the Government's 'Australia Connected' announcement) was Mikael Halen, director government and strategy with Ericsson in Sweden. Citing Ericsson and Gartner research he projected the number of 3G devices and mobile WiMAX devices out to 2011: 3G WCDMA devices were in the billions, WiMAX a barely perceptible sliver on a graph.
Such a comparison is not necessarily very meaningful: the great majority of those 3GPP devices will be cellphones and their volumes may not necessarily help that much to bring down the price of more specialised data comms devices. More specifically, Ericsson is forecasting 600 million mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide by 2010, of which HSPA will account for 71 percent and mobile WiMAX a mere 2.5 percent.
However, WiMAX advocates like Nortel's Rob Inshaw point to the players developing mobile WiMAX CPE, note that these are the same as those who drove down the price of WiFi CPE and predict a similar downward path for WiMAX CPE.
According to Inshaw "The companies that are building these mobile wiMax devices they are same companies that commoditised WiFi. These are the same companies that probably build you laptop your TV your PDA. They may only be companies of five thousand people but behind them are companies in China and Taiwan employing 36,000 people, very vertically integrated and focussing on driving down costs. There is no doubt in my mind that WiMAX is on the same cost curve as WiFi."
He notes that WiFi devices are way cheaper than 3G devices, and claims that even now WiMAX devices are showing signs of being cheaper than HSPA equivalents "Operators are wanting to put datacentric 3g devices into a house as a broadband device and the cost points they were talking about are $US450. Today we can access devices that are sub $US200.
Very firmly in the 3G corner in this debate is Ericsson and putting the case to me some weeks ago (before the Government's 'Australia Connected' announcement) was Mikael Halen, director government and strategy with Ericsson in Sweden. Citing Ericsson and Gartner research he projected the number of 3G devices and mobile WiMAX devices out to 2011: 3G WCDMA devices were in the billions, WiMAX a barely perceptible sliver on a graph.
Such a comparison is not necessarily very meaningful: the great majority of those 3GPP devices will be cellphones and their volumes may not necessarily help that much to bring down the price of more specialised data comms devices. More specifically, Ericsson is forecasting 600 million mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide by 2010, of which HSPA will account for 71 percent and mobile WiMAX a mere 2.5 percent.
However, WiMAX advocates like Nortel's Rob Inshaw point to the players developing mobile WiMAX CPE, note that these are the same as those who drove down the price of WiFi CPE and predict a similar downward path for WiMAX CPE.
According to Inshaw "The companies that are building these mobile wiMax devices they are same companies that commoditised WiFi. These are the same companies that probably build you laptop your TV your PDA. They may only be companies of five thousand people but behind them are companies in China and Taiwan employing 36,000 people, very vertically integrated and focussing on driving down costs. There is no doubt in my mind that WiMAX is on the same cost curve as WiFi."
He notes that WiFi devices are way cheaper than 3G devices, and claims that even now WiMAX devices are showing signs of being cheaper than HSPA equivalents "Operators are wanting to put datacentric 3g devices into a house as a broadband device and the cost points they were talking about are $US450. Today we can access devices that are sub $US200.
posted by John Baush at
5:27 AM
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