Mobile WiMAX Market Up 35%, Fixed WiMAX Down 40% in 1Q07

Source: Infonetics Research

Mobile WiMAX equipment, which just started shipping enough product in the previous quarter to be appreciably counted, increased 35 percent in the first quarter of 2007, according to the latest WiMAX and Outdoor Mesh Network Equipment report of Infonetics Research.

The small but fast growing outdoor wireless mesh access node segment is also posed for strong long-term growth, although worldwide revenue dipped 2 percent to $120.1 million in 1Q07 from 4Q06.

Meanwhile, after jumping 39 percent in 4Q06, the worldwide fixed WiMAX equipment market dropped 40 percent in 1Q07.

"The fixed WiMAX market could be inhibited by the launch of mobile WiMAX, but fixed remains viable where connectivity needs outweigh mobility needs, so this is just a growth blip following a strong previous quarter," said Richard Webb, wireless broadband analyst for Infonetics Research. "The mobile WiMAX ecosystem of components, equipment, handsets, and service providers is not yet fully realized and will take time, but we expect healthy growth. The key to a long-term future for these markets, including wireless mesh, will depend on how well these technologies work together with high speed cellular services in a multi-technology wireless environment."

The following are the market highlights:
- The worldwide WiMAX equipment market (including fixed and mobile) is forecast to grow at a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 70 percent between 2006 and 2010
- In 1Q07, Alvarion leads in fixed WiMAX equipment revenue share, followed by Airspan
- Tropos Networks is ahead of Strix Systems in the battle for leadership in outdoor mesh equipment revenue in 1Q07, while Motorola moves up to 3rd
- 35 percent of all fixed WiMAX equipment revenue came from Asia Pacific in 1Q07, 33 percent from EMEA, 18 percent from North America, and 14 percent from CALA; North America will lose share as the others gain share over the next few years

Sprint's WiMAX Effort to Focus on Devices

by Jim Barthold

Even as Sprint wrings out the first shipment of Samsung mobile WiMAX equipment in its labs in anticipation of a December soft rollout, the carrier is already determining what expects to reap from mobile broadband via a new wireless network.

From the start, it won’t be anything like a conventional mobile offering that can be purchased in a Sprint store as part of a contract, said Barry West, president of 4G mobile broadband and CTO at Sprint.

“We’re working hard to get out of the subsidy business,” West said. “We are driving the ecosystem of chipset vendors and consumer electronics companies and device manufacturers to get to the point where WiMAX is embedded in devices like Wi- Fi is today and the carriers do not pay a subsidy for that device.”

That may not, of course, be the model when Sprint begins soft rollouts in December in Washington, D.C. using Samsung equipment and Chicago using Motorola gear. It may not even be the model when the carrier actually launches in those two markets—and probably a few others—in the April time frame next year. But it will be the way Sprint markets its mobile broadband data service, West said.

“We’re looking at having optimized devices,” he said, using the example of a cordless phone which is an optimized telephone for within a residence. “We could have the ultimate coreless phone that works in your town. It becomes much more a world where any device provides an access route to the Internet.”

Today’s mobile wireless devices have become jacks-of-all- trades with cameras and music players and Internet connections and even the ability to make phone calls. The mobile WiMAX IP foundation lets a carrier move away from the notion of selling a package of services and the device to run those services to selling services and letting the consumer purchase the appropriate device.

“It takes a while for people to get used to the fact that we’re not going to look for a contract per device,” he said. “It will be a world where any device provides an access route to the Internet, whereas today that doesn’t exist.”

This, of course, is all in the future. Sprint’s job now—in addition to testing the capabilities of its mobile WiMAX vendors Samsung, Motorola and Nokia Siemens Networks and building out the initial networks—is “explaining the difference between mobilizing the Internet and a mobile voice network. We’re not ready yet to come out with our plans. We’ll do that much nearer to launch date,” he said.

Telefónica plans on bidding for WiMax spectrum in 2008

Telefónica plans on bidding for WiMax spectrum in 2008
Chilean fixed line incumbent operator Telefónica Chile plans to make a bid for WiMax spectrum in the next auction expected sometime next year, the company's general manager José Molés told press.

CTC considers WiMax a perfect fit to offer broadband and telephony in regions where copper cable theft has affected the current level of services and spiked costs, Molés said at the launch of the company's IPTV service on Thursday.

The company has said it spent US$10.5mn on replacing stolen copper wire in 2006.
Although telecoms regulator Subtel has not set a date for a WiMax auction, it could occur sometime in 2008, watchdog head Pablo Bello told press during the IPTV launch.
Currently the local unit of Telefónica's regional nemesis Telmex is the only operator in Chile that is offering commercial services using a WiMax network.

However, to date Telmex Chile has mainly targeted SMEs with WiMax or offered it only in neighborhoods where cable theft is a major problem.
Chilean cable TV operator VTR also has a license in the 3,400-3,600MHz band and has selected WiMax equipment from US telecoms equipment provider Motorola (NYSE: MOT), though has yet to launch WiMax commercially.

Mobile WiMAX Market Forecasts to 2012 - With comparisons to LTE or 4G

Mobile WiMAX Market Forecasts to 2012 - With comparisons to LTE or 4G
Mobile wimax equipment which utilize beam-forming and MIMO technologies will become available towards the end of this year.

Mobile wimax equipment which utilize beam-forming and MIMO technologies will become available towards the end of this year. Broadband wireless deployments using pre-802.16e compliant equipment have already begun. In Korea both KT and SK Telecom have implemented mobile broadband wireless networks in specific locations throughout the country.

Sprint/Nextel are deploying an 802.16e compliant mobile wimax network which will reach 100 million Americans by the end of 2008. BT will bid for 2.5GHz RF spectrum in the Ofcom auctions which will take place towards the end of the year 2007. Gaining such spectrum will allow the incumbent to deploy an efficient wimax service and compete with companies such as Vodafone for triple play services. Cable companies are gradually acquiring spectrum and are looking at distributing their content to mobile devices. Greenfield operators are expected to utilize mobile wimax technology in order to secure a 3G/4G market position by attracting consumers with an early new level of service. Clearwire is such a carrier with operations in the United States, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland and in Mexico (via MVSnet).

Equipment manufacturers are becoming increasingly active in mobile wimax. Vendors such as Samsung, Nortel Networks, Alcatel and Nokia-Siemens Networks are all involved in 802.16e projects globally. Motorola have just announced a major deal in Pakistan. Companies that have been heavily involved in operator proprietary broadband wireless implementations such as Alvarion and Proxim are also developing 802.16e compliant platforms. Various chipset providers such as Wavesat, Runcom Technologies and Beceem Communications are developing OFDMA chips and are testing their products for interoperability with solutions from other vendors. Dual mode handsets will be very popular with mobile wimax deployments with GSM/OFDMA and CDMA/OFDMA handsets dominating the market.

But there is confusion. Ericsson believe that by the year 2010 mobile wimax will account for only 5-10% of global broadband wireless revenues and are therefore more focused on broadband cellular technologies. Who is right? Availability of 2.5GHz spectrum is crucial to the success of mobile wimax particularly throughout the western world. In Europe HSPA is dominating the cellular market and this combined with the current unavailability of 2.5GHz spectrum throughout most of the continent is leading to little interest from mobile operators. In the U.S a lot of the 2.5GHz spectrum is owned by Sprint. The carrier will start its deployment by using 10MHz channels to deliver services and could use even larger bandwidths in the future.

Throughout the developed parts of the world technologies such as 3GPP LTE and HSPA are expected to make a huge impact. HSPA operators will begin upgrading to LTE in 2009/2010 with subscribers exceeding 250 million by the year 2015. However as Vodafone’s Arun Sarin points out, LTE is still being deliberate by GSM standards bodies, while WiMAX is available NOW.

This report not only discusses mobile wimax but also technologies beyond 3.5G (HSDPA and EV-DO Rev A) such as 3GPP LTE and Ultra Mobile Broadband. Developments in the core network as networks move towards fixed mobile convergence and the IMS are analyzed. The market opportunities of fixed and mobile wimax technologies for each geographical region are looked at in detail. The impact of LTE and UMB on markets is also included in this report.

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WiBro in Korea: Ambitious Launch - Turbulent Take Off

In 2006 South Korea became the first country to launch Mobile WiMAX/WiBro services. Operators were once ambitious about subscriber growth, but soon disappointed by the reality. The limited network coverage and available user devices significantly impacted the subscriber growth. By the end of 2006, the total users were just above 1,000.

In an effort to increase subscribers, KT is pushing device makers to come out with a wider selection of WiBro phones, USB dongles, and computers. It is also trying to provide various content services. SK Telecom, on the other hand, has decided to wait for KT to drive the market development before committing substantial recourses on WiBro. Meanwhile, South Korea WiBro vendors and operators are trying to reach out to the vast international market. In-Stat believes that as wireless broadband is on the rising edge globally, South Korean players surely have the chance to make the gains!

Beceem Selects ANADIGICS Amplifiers for Mobile WiMAX

ANADIGICS Inc. recently announced that its WiMAX power amplifiers (PAs) have been specified by Beceem Communications for their BCS200 chipset reference designs. ANADIGICS' AWM6423 and AWM6432 PAs provide highly linear, high-efficiency solutions for 2.5GHz and 3.5GHz mobile applications. Beceem's BSC200 baseband and RF chipset supports all features of the Mobile WiMAX Wave 2 Profile. Beceem's inclusion of ANADIGICS PAs results in complete reference designs that enable WiMAX equipment manufacturers to quickly introduce high performance products for the growing market.

"Mobile WiMAX radios require high linearity for robust links and low power consumption for extended battery life," said David Patterson, Vice President of Marketing at Beceem. "The operating efficiencies of ANADIGICS' WiMAX power amplifiers, in conjunction with the reduced power consumption achieved by Beceem's BCS200 Wave 2 chipset with smart antenna technology, provide compelling solutions for mobile WiMAX terminals."

"ANADIGICS WiMAX power amplifiers provide high linearity, high efficiency and advanced functional integration to support high performance solutions for the world's emerging broadband wireless systems," said Ron Michels, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Broadband Products at ANADIGICS. "Beceem is making the first step into 4G for WiMAX products, and we are delighted to be a part of the BCS200 chipset reference designs. We look forward to continued cooperation with Beceem on future WiMAX designs."

ANADIGICS' highly integrated AWM6423 and AWM6432 WiMAX PA modules provide an integrated step attenuator and output power detector and fully matched RF ports, minimizing external component count, PCB space requirements, and development costs. The PAs operate with exceptional power efficiencies at output power levels required for mobile transmission and reception, supporting an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 4 percent for 16-QAM signals or 2.5 percent for 64-QAM signals.

Deal with satellite-TV giants signals more Clearwire growth

By Tricia Duryee
Seattle Times technology reporter
Clearwire has signed an agreement with two nationwide satellite-TV services that may raise the Kirkland company's profile and add customers to its cutting-edge wireless broadband Internet service.

Both DirecTV and EchoStar Communications will be able to offer Clearwire's Internet and Internet telephone services to their customers. In return, Clearwire can offer TV services from one or both companies to its subscribers.

With the partnerships, the three companies will be able to bundle TV, Internet access and voice services.

The bundling, called a "triple play," has become a common offering among telecommunications and cable companies. By signing up for more than one service, the customer often gets a discount.

Announcement of the deal sent Clearwire stock rocketing $4.63, or 23.3 percent, to $24.50.

"We are always looking at new ways of getting product out and distributing it, and this helps solve how DirecTV and EchoStar would go about adding a high-speed Internet service to their offering," said Ben Wolff, Clearwire's chief executive. "We figured out a good way to work together."

Clearwire offers a form of an emerging technology called WiMax to about 260,000 subscribers worldwide. In the U.S., it operates in about 35 markets, including Seattle.

Clearwire's partnerships with DirecTV and EchoStar (which operates the Dish Network) is expected to be completed later this year after the companies get their computer systems in line to make it possible to deliver one bill to the customer.

Marketing plus

Daryl Schoolar, a senior analyst with the In-Stat research firm, said Clearwire will benefit from the additional marketing opportunities.
advertising

He said DirecTV and Echostar, which respectively have 16 million and 13.4 million subscribers, will be able to compete with cable operators and telecom operators that offer the triple play.

"We continue to see trends with bundling," he said.

The arrangement is not exclusive, and DirecTV said the distribution agreement did not include an investment in Clearwire.

DirecTV, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said more than a year ago it was willing to dedicate up to $1 billion for an investment in wireless broadband.

The company was rumored to be looking into a number of technologies, with Clearwire near the top of the list.