Mobile WiMAX to beat out fixed competition

Mobile WiMAX is shaping up to be a major threat to mobile phone operators, even before products based on the standard have started shipping.

This claim has been made by Paul Senior, who is a member of the WiMAX Forum as well as VP of marketing for Airspan, a developer of equipment for the WiMAX market.

While he acknowledged that there will be no laptops or smartphones featuring embedded Mobile WiMAX until 'well into 2008', he claimed it has the potential to derail 3G and its variants as the broadband wireless standard of choice for businesses. "It will be in everything, just as Wi-Fi is in every laptop today," he predicted.

The window that Mobile WiMAX's slow evolution is giving to mobile operators and other backers of 3G will only serve to stimulate demand for the Intel-backed standard, said Senior. "3G will create an appetite for all-you-can-eat wide area connectivity, but won't come with the horrible cost model that mobile operators are stuck with," he said. "Five years down the line, it's not looking good for mobile carriers that haven't embraced IP and WiMAX."

Research company Juniper agrees that Mobile WiMAX is no longer a 'hyped' technology, but predicts that it will start to erode the existing base of Fixed WiMAX implementations once the first certified products using the stand are released.

Aditya Kaul of Juniper Research is forecasting that subscribers for Mobile WiMAX solutions will rise to 21.3 million worldwide by 2012 from 1.7 million next year when the standard is set to be ratified.

The credibility of WiMAX as a pervasive technology has been threatened not only by alternative mobile data technologies but by the division of the technology into two separate streams - Fixed and Mobile. Fixed WiMAX is a fully ratified standard, while Mobile remains unapproved.

Intel has just moved to unite the two strands of WiMAX on the same chipset - Rosedale 2 - which will boost the standard by future proofing devices that incorporate the new chip, said Senior.

Despite this convergence, competition between Mobile and Fixed WiMAX will escalate over the next five years, says Kaul:

"The Rosedale II chipset is aimed at trying to consolidate the fixed WiMAX market that will eventually be lost to Mobile WiMAX," she said.

"The chipset offers backward compatibility with fixed WiMAX, but is ultimately a solution that supports Mobile WiMAX. Thus OEMs can easily migrate from Fixed WiMAX to Mobile WiMAX. This is a clear indicator of the future of WiMAX and that Mobile WiMAX will ultimately overtake Fixed WiMAX."

WiMAX may not necessarily eclipse Wi-Fi though, believes Mike Hijdra, CEO of consultancy 2Fast4Wireless.

"If you put a WiMAX chip in a laptop, its demands give you battery life of two hours max," he told IP Pro. "WiMAX will stand alongside Wi-Fi, not be a replacement."

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