WASHINGTON-Factors such as new wireless local loop licensing, reduced equipment costs and increasing acceptance of wireless as an alternative to wireline communications will contribute to the WLL market growing 50 percent annually from 1998 to 2002, according to a recent report from The Strategis Group.
There were only 1 million subscribers at the end of 1997, although fixed WLL technology has been in existence for several years, the Washington, D.C., research firm estimated. The market is expected to reach 8 million by 2000, and take off after the turn of the century, reaching 47 million WLL subscribers by 2005.
The vast majority of WLL demand will be found in markets with inadequate wireline networks unable to meet pent-up demand. Allocation of specific frequencies for WLL in China and India are expected to drive growth in the Asia-Pacific region, which will account for 40 percent of world WLL subscribers by 2005, the report says.
The Strategis Group expects Code Division Multiple Access to be the leading technology for WLL by 2005, accounting for 29 percent of the total subscriber base. The firm based its assessment of CDMA’s positioning on its momentum for mobile networks and its comparatively high subscriber capacity.
As analog cellular-based WLL is replaced with digital technologies, analog cellular WLL subscribers are expected to drop significantly from 46 percent of WLL subscribers in 1997 to 4 percent in 2005.
Conversely, digital cellular/personal communications services-based WLL is projected to grow from 5.8 million in 2001 to 22 million in 2005. Digital European Cordless Telecommunications and Personal Handyphone System services are projected to be the next-most popular platforms for WLL with 13 million subscribers in 2005.
“Global Wireless Local Loop Markets: 1998” defined WLL as fixed-only and includes only paying subscribers, meaning that mobility subscribers who also use a handset for fixed purposes and non-paying trial subscribers were excluded from the study.
