Two days back SearchTelecom said Intel and Google have written off more than US$1.3 billion combined in Clearwire. The deep pockets are in deep trouble unless Clearwire goes for massive deployment. But that’s a huge challenge in this economic climate. The future of WiMAX is pretty bleak in developed countries and as a result, equipment makers aren’t likely to sustain their investments in the space, said research firm Analysys Mason today.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is getting ready to hammer last nail in the coffin of America’s WiMax dream. Viviane Reding and her colleagues have decided to repeat the GSM trick of the 1980s and become the incubator of the next generation of mobile technologies – Long Term Evolution or LTE. That’s the antidote of WiMax as GSM has been cannibalizing CDMA. Who needs a crystal ball to predict the fate of WiMax once these bits and pieces are put together?
2 Comments
Amar
WiMAX has a definite niche, and IMO it’s alive and well
A few points:
1. A WiMAX network of national scope in many countries are accepting customers right now. You can’t say that about LTE.
2. 3.65 GHz provides a nice spectrum for smaller WISPs that cover more rural areas.
3. LTE is a natural cell-carrier evolution of technology and incumbent carriers have vested interest into LTE as they are tied into locked standards. It’s a relatively closed standard, made by the 3GPP, whose main purpose is to extend what we see today in terms of mobile devices into the next generation of high speed. WiMAX OTOH is being built into stuff like WiFi; it’s an IEEE standard so will probably get a lot more consumer electronics momentum.
4. In conjunction with (2), WiMAX is the only standardized wireless technology (across equipment vendors) that doesn’t require hefty spectrum purchases and is built for long-range communications. 802.11 (WiFi) is *okay* for long-range, however many companies are branching out into proprietary standards (most of them TDMA/polling based) to give customers the next level in performance.
-So your prediction about the demise of WiMax is misleading, in my humble opinion. Good Day.
Afsar
Wimax is yet to roll out in Bangladesh though business people have paid US$ 31m to BTRC only acquire the license, setting a world record. I dont know much about prospects of Wimax or 3G, all we need at the moment is a good broadband connectivity greater than 128 kbps added with mobility at a reasonable price. People having the knowledge of the technology also has the sacred responsibility to give correct information to the common people. Making money by misleading them would be a crime.
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