WiMax’s Star Rising?

January 17th, 2007: The enthusiasm behin WiMax may have chilled somewhat since it was the talk of the town two years ago, however, many are still talking up its benefits and new trends are beginning to emerge.

According to Ovum, the technology was reportedly very much a part of both the ITU Telecom World and 3G World Congress in Hong Kong in December 2006, with some of its potential rising from the industry feeling that 802.16d is increasingly becoming a niche development.

To become more of a force in mobile technology, WiMax now needs widespread adoption of hardware. Ovum says that the timeline for delivery of certified mobile WiMax equipment is now being pushed back to the end of 2007.

“While we heard quite a few comments to the effect that ‘2007 will be the year of mobile WiMax’ we believe it will, like 2006, be the year of pre-standard mobile WiMax,” said Ovum Director of Asia-Pacific Research, Neale Anderson. “Discussions with Intel gave us a clear indication of how it will approach mobile WiMax, and its prognosis is encouraging.”

Ovum claims that Intel stated that there is considerable commonality in the wifi and WiMax platforms, which will enable it to bring cost down rapidly. It is aiming for what it terms a ‘30-30’ model, whereby customers should have to pay no more than $30 for the radio module, and no more than $30 for monthly data access.

WiMax’s day may be closer than expected though, as not only is industry interest in the technology gathering steam, a new report by ABI Research titled "Energy Efficiency Analysis for Mobile Broadband Solutions" has pointed out that network operators may need to integrate wireless technology into metro areas to keep energy costs down.

Speaking to ZDnet.com.au, ABI's director of wireless research Stuart Carlaw said that "From a pure coverage perspective WiMax is twice as energy-cost-effective and metro WiFi is 50 times more energy-cost-effective than WCDMA.

"When data traffic is factored into the equation, WiMax can accommodate 11 times today's average data consumption and still be more energy-cost-efficient compared to WCDMA or HSDPA."

Comment on this story