Mobile WiMAX to be technology for developing countries

Press release, July 4; Michael McManus, DIGITIMES [Friday 4 July 2008]

Mobile WiMAX may not succeed in mature mobile broadband markets, but it will have a future in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, especially in India according to an analysis made by Cantab Wireless.

Cantab Wireless believes that while Mobile WiMAX is a powerful technology, it cannot fulfil all the expectations placed upon it. The biggest challenge for Mobile WiMAX is that it is competing against 3G cellular networks in mature telecommunications markets. Analysis shows that Mobile WiMAX - performance-wise - cannot provide a shortcut to the 4th generation of mobile telecomms as some of its promoters have claimed. Given all the facts, Mobile WiMAX performance is comparable to 3.5G cellular systems at best, and in some areas it lags behind its cellular competitors. More importantly, 3.5G has already been rolled out, operating in numerous
cellular networks, whereas Mobile WiMAX is yet to become operational in a grand scale in developed markets.

Therefore, the research firm forecast that Mobile WiMAX will not be able to gain a significant foothold in developed markets. However, in developing markets the situation is not quite so depressing for Mobile WiMAX. Typically, the lack of cellular broadband services (i.e., 3G) in a country implies that there is no market for those services to date. Thus, Mobile WiMAX has to make its break in countries which do not have mobile broadband yet but which are developing fast.

The BRIC countries fit this description well. India is a particularly promising market for Mobile WiMAX, as fixed WiMAX is already widely used as a cable replacement technology in many developing countries such as Pakistan and India, which provide good starting points in terms of Mobile WiMAX deployments.