Mobile WiMAX poised for commercial reality

By Caroline Gabriel, Research director, Rethink Research Associates

After extensive build-up and anticipation, and some false starts, Mobile WiMAX™ is finally poised for mainstream commercial roll-out, and the chance to be tried and tested in the real world.

Certification testing of equipment that conforms to 802.16e Wave 2 – considered in most areas to be ‘real’ Mobile WiMAX, because it implements key performance enhancing technologies like MIMO and adaptive Beamforming – will kick off around the turn of the year. The specifications are stable enough, however, that vendors are already able to carry out interoperability tests among themselves, and to show off Wave 2 kit that should require only minimal tweaking to gain full certification.

This rising confidence in the platform means that major service providers are starting to make firm commitments to 802.16e and to start their roll-outs, even in advance of mass market certified kit – which is primarily an issue for terminals, once operators hit volume deployments in a year or so. Sprint Nextel has, of course, been the cheerleader for early Mobile WiMAX commitment, but while its support has been a major endorsement for 802.16e, it is more important to look at the wider range of providers that are allocating CAPEX dollars to the technology. While Sprint is a unique case, because of its huge holdings of spectrum, the real sign that Mobile WiMAX is now on the brink of mainstream commercial reality is the lengthening list of operators of many types, and in many regions, that are adopting the platform.

According to new figures from Rethink Research, CAPEX investment on pre-4G wireless systems (primarily, Mobile WiMAX, LTE and UltraMobile Broadband) will reach a cumulative total of $13B by 2012 if new spectrum allocations, and technology roll-outs, stay on schedule. The main systems attracting this global spend will be 802.16e and its successor 802.16m, and LTE, but while the latter will see a strong uptick in growth from the turn of the decade, it will not match WiMAX in CAPEX terms until 2013. This report is based on feedback from a survey of almost 400 providers worldwide, all of which are planning to trial or deploy one or more pre-4G technologies with the implementation to start before the beginning of 2013. The respondents range from Tier 1 converged Telcos, Wireline Telcos and Cellcos through major regional carriers and international ISPs, to broadcasters, broadband wireless start-ups, media players and major WISPs.

Before the end of the decade, WiMAX takes the lion's share of this capex spend (including RAN and core infrastructure and associated software and services) because of its earlier availability, even in pre-certified form, and it retains its CAPEX lead throughout the period.

High profile operators that have put their weight behind Mobile WiMAX include Rogers in Canada, NTT DoCoMo in Japan, Telefonica in Spain and Latin America, and perhaps most significantly, Vodafone, which for years stuck to a single-technology strategy, based around UMTS and its successors, but has now accepted that WiMAX will be part of its future roadmap.

Real world commercial services are initially coming, in many cases, from smaller operators, which can blaze a trail for the big names. Some are start-ups created specifically to take advantage of WiMAX qualities to develop a disruptive business – Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia have been particularly strong regions for this type of activity. Others are existing operators that are using mobile broadband to extend their current business models in terms of geographical coverage, profitability or range of services. One of the first public deployments of commercial pre-certified 802.16e network, for instance, is Liberty Technologies in Panama City, Panama, which recently started to implement Navini’s software upgrade to convert its current Ripwave® network to 16e. As new spectrum becomes available, notably in 700MHz in the US and elsewhere, and 2.5GHz in Europe, so the opportunities for WiMAX will increase and roll-out will accelerate.

For now, early adopters like Liberty and the emergence of the first certified kit and attractive terminals will be the important markers that show that Mobile WiMAX really is ready to hit the commercial big time.

09/21/2007 11:28:00 AM