Even as the wireless technology vies with LTE and other competitive technologies for market share, and continues to grow, WiMAX development is being hampered by a number of key issues says In-Stat in a new report.
The news comes as a blow for the WiMAX camp only weeks after the launch of the WiMAX 2 Collaboration Initiative (WCI) which was created to building upon what the WiMAX industry described as the ‘success' of the first generation of the WiMAX mobile broadband standards.
The new initiative was designed to accelerate the development of the WiMAX 2 ecosystem by adding new capabilities while maintaining backward compatibility. In addition to offering higher capacity and lower latency, the WCI said that WiMAX 2 would offer peak data rates of more than 300 Mbps. Such speeds would be ideal to support a high quality experiences for rich media applications such as mobile TV and video.
Only weeks ago, in a key boost for WiMAX, thousands of customers lined up outside stores of US telco Sprint to buy the operator's first 4G handset, the HTC EVOTM 4G, said to be the first of its kind in the US to support next-generation networks.
In "Global WiMAX Subscribers, Base Stations and Revenues" its the telecoms analyst found that global WiMAX subscribers in 2009 more than doubled those found in 2008 to reach 6.3 million.
Furthermore, In-Stat believes that worldwide WiMAX subscription revenues will approach US$30.2 billion in 2014 driven by countries such as India, which will likely approach 7 million subscribers by 2013, and Eastern Europe which is predicted to be a significant regional market with over 11 million subscribers by 2014.
The report identifies key deployment wins by major infrastructure equipment manufacturers such as Airspan, Alvarion, Aviat Networks, Huawei, Motorola, Samsung, and ZTE. Yet In-Stat noticeably points out that despite the best efforts of the WiMAX industry, a number of major hardware vendors have announced that they will cease WiMAX product development.
"It seems that as one door opens for WiMAX, another door closes," commented Chris Kissel, In-Stat analyst. "In the past year, there have been positive developments in consumer devices, including smartphones that use WiMAX for data but revert to 3G airlinks for voice. On the other hand, in many regions regulators are postponing spectrum auctions; and several major digital communications companies are reducing their commitment to WiMAX or leaving the space altogether."