International interest in WiMAX growing

Beyond the shores and borders of the United States, WiMAX is an entirely different animal from the spectrum it plays on, the rules it must adhere to and the players bringing it to life.
Around half of the world’s population is now covered by some spectrum licensed for WiMAX. Trials and commercial deployments are under way in nearly every reach of the world, but less than a handful of operators have begun serving customers with mobile broadband access via the technology.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of activity in the relatively near future,” said Kurt Steinert, senior manager of communications at Alcatel-Lucent, one of a growing number of vendors investing in the technology. “I think you’ll see launches happening, for sure, before the end of the year. We’re just seeing the start of commercial services, so 2008 is going to be a big year.”
As of mid-August, Alcatel-Lucent had 12 commercial WiMAX deployments on the books with at least 70 trials in full swing throughout the world.
“There was a lot of trial activity,” Steinert added. “There’s been a lot of speculation about whether the market was really going to mature or come to fruition, but we’re starting to see that happen now.”
Alcatel-Lucent and others are pleased to see consumer-end companies jump on the WiMAX train, seeing it as a critical step toward more of a mass-market approach.
“We’re seeing that the ecosystem is really starting to come together,” Steinert said.
Why WiMAX?
Wireless operators have committed or are at least considering the use of WiMAX for a variety of reasons. “There are certain markets where wireless broadband makes a lot of sense,” Steinert said. “In some cases in places like Africa (where fixed-line infrastructure is not well developed) they’re not looking to just leapfrog competitors, they’re looking to leapfrog technology all together.
“I do think it’s in that sense probably considered a kind of a disruptive technology,” he added. “In markets where there’s no broadband infrastructure to speak of, I think it’s particularly attractive.”
Those opportunities have generated interest from a variety of companies abroad-both new and old to the wireless game. As each company treads this new territory, it is finding a host of issues unique to each country or region where it has spectrum licensed for WiMAX.
“I think you’ll see all kinds of operators deploy WiMAX for different reasons,” Steinert said. “It just gives them another tool in their toolbox.”
Most WiMAX networks will be deployed in the 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands, and yet, therein lies the challenge operators will face.
Spectrum challenges
“These frequencies typically are a little bit higher than what’s used with cellular networks,” said Philip Solis, a senior analyst at ABI Research. “With 3.5 GHz it’s a little bit more difficult to do mobile services.”
In Europe, most WiMAX networks are being deployed using spectrum at 3.5 GHz, however those networks will mostly be confined to offering fixed wireless service. The spectrum is being used in the United States mostly for testing, Solis said. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for a fully mobile WiMAX offering at 2.5 GHz abroad.
“Right now 2.5 GHz isn’t opened up in Europe,” Solis said, but that’s quickly changing. “Going forward things will be more favorable to the technology-neutral approach across the European Union.”
While the United States opened up 2.5 GHz spectrum at least three years ago, ABI Research analyst Nadine Manjaro thinks operators in Europe will face even less restriction. “It will probably be more open and less restricted than it is in the United States,” she said.
The European Commission, WiMAX Forum and several European countries are pushing for a more technology-neutral approach to spectrum auctions and regulation, all in an aim to put mobile WiMAX on the same footing as 3G services.
“This is a good sign for technology neutrality becoming the accepted approach for spectrum auctions in the future,” ABI Research analyst Ian Cox wrote in a report on the issue. “Mobile WiMAX could compete in the market against 3G, HSPA, HSPA+, and LTE, and provide an entry path currently only available to incumbent operators.”
Like all network build outs, companies typically can’t afford to wait for legislation from above and instead hedge their bets based on which spectrum is available at the most opportune time. “It really comes down to spectrum availability,” Solis said.
And many are getting started with the spectrum they already hold.
International interest
Outside the United States, ABI Research expects to initially see heavy WiMAX activity in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.
“The United States may be first on this, but only because of Sprint’s drive,” Solis said. “It will be spread out. It will happen pretty much all around the globe, but the hotspot will be the United States because of Sprint and Clearwire.”
Still, operators have much to learn from each other as they push forward.
KT Corp., which launched the first commercial WiMAX network in South Korea at 2.3 GHz, has run into problems during its first phase of about 2,000 customers. “Tests of these devices were showing very small throughputs,” Solis said, also adding that battery life was very short and devices were getting hot.