WiMAX, an acronym for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of wireless broadband access as an alternative to
wired broadband such as cable and DSL. It’s also a brand name for technologies based on the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 and
European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) HiperMAN standards. WiMAX is also often referred to as broadband wireless MAN (W-MAN), an acronym for Wireless Metropolitan Area Network.
Although WiMAX is based on standards that are the responsibility of ETSI and IEEE, the WiMAX Forum was created in 2001 as an independent, non-profit trade association to
promote the technology and oversee its certification. The forum also creates profiles, which are requirements that go beyond the basic 802.16 standards. The forum currently has 533 member companies, the vast majority of which are vendors. The WiMAX Forum currently estimates that more than 300 operators in over 65 countries have deployed mobile WiMAX commercial, pilot and trial networks.
WiMAX bears watching by makers of wired and wireless equipment, as well as by providers of wired and wireless services for the consumer, enterprise and government markets. It also bears watching by PC vendors because the technology is being
integrated into laptops and other computing devices.
However, WiMAX’s competitive position will depend on how quickly it can develop the cost structure and ecosystem necessary to grab market share from incumbents. A competitive cost structure also will be a major factor in WiMAX’s ability to sell into less developed, price-sensitive markets such as Africa and Latin America. WiMAX’s ever-growing vendor base is a plus in terms of cost structure: with that many vendors, competition will be fierce, putting enormous pressure on price. This creates a snowball effect; the more the price drops, the more service providers that can make a business case for using
WiMAX. More deployments mean more equipment and device volume, which in turn drives down prices even more.
To displace incumbent technologies or provide competition to other broadband mobile technolgoies, WiMAX must also be able to demonstrate that it can support not only the same applications and features, but more of them. It also must be able to show
that it’s capable of delivering quality of service (QoS) and reliability at least on par with existing technologies.
This report provides an overview of WiMAX in terms of standards development, spectrum and applications. It also includes profiles of select vendors in terms of product offerings and current deployments. iGR plans to publish a forecast for the WiMAX subscriber market later in the first quarter of 2008.
