100 WiMAX deployments and counting, despite downturn in economy

CHICAGO – WiMAX vendors, chipmakers and operators are all ready to take on the wireless market at a time when economic hardship has shocked Wall Street, pushing the United States to the brink of a recession.
The financial downturn the U.S. economy is experiencing is weighing heavily on the minds of the wireless industry as WiMAX World 2008 got underway Wednesday.
Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer for Yankee Group and moderator for WiMAX World, referred to Wall Street’s woes during his assessment of the global market.
Ayvazian noted WiMAX has made significant strides in the past few years, with 100 commercial operators using the wireless broadband technology today.
“We are at a very important historical point,” he said. “We have several WiMAX networks operable. “But just as we are breaking through, we are in one of the worst financial downturns. We are in a very challenging time.”
In the current economic climate, Ayvazian said it will be tough for wireless companies to raise capital, and some may have a difficult time just staying in business.
Nonetheless, WiMAX technology is on the cusp of taking off in countries across the globe and the industry must take advantage of the head start it has on LTE, which is not expected to be deployed until 2010.
“We can’t wait,” said Ron Resnick, president and chairman of WiMAX Forum. “We have a time-to-market advantage that is ours to lose. We are two to three years ahead of any similar technology that is being developed.”
Resnick used India as an example of how fruitful WiMAX can be in the wireless market. In India, there are 6 billion people in the country and 3 billion use handsets. About 1 billion are connected to the Internet and about 400 million have Internet access through broadband.
Resnick estimates that there are 800 million potential customers in rural areas of the country, where WiMAX could be the network of choice.
“Citizens in India want to be connected but the infrastructure is not there,” he said. “There are 800 million people without broadband connectivity.
“WiMAX gives us the opportunity to capture this market. It is cost effective. It can be deployed across the country. It is ready now.”
Fred Wright, Motorola Inc. senior VP for cellular networks and WiMAX, said the various players such as chipmakers, operators and device suppliers, are all ready for large-scale WiMAX deployments.
“We have lots of products that are ready to go on the network,” he said.
Critical to the success of WiMAX will be backhaul applications that can deliver network transmissions and data over an alternative route when the normal route is unavailable or overrun with customers.
Backhaul technology will have a major impact,” he said. “This technology provides tremendous bandwidth at low cost. It can operate in a wide range.”
Wright also said WiMAX proponents cannot forget about the other wireless broadband technology that is being developed.
“We can’t pretend that LTE is not going to happen,” he said. “They are similar technologies but operate on different spectrum bands.”
Factors that favor WiMAX technology are that it is cheaper to deploy compared to a cellular network and the infrastructure costs less. Backhaul can be reduced to about 2% of the total cost of operating a network, he said.
“The physical package of equipment is very small,” he said. “It will cost less to deploy. It is easy to install and easy to maintain.”
According to ABI Research, Motorola has 46% of the market share in the United States when it comes to wireless infrastructure.
Wright said the Illinois-based company is well positioned in the WiMAX market.
“We have put the right focus on the technology,” he said. “We have put the right focus on sales and marketing. “We have made a lot of progress. Thousands of products are being shipped.”