Worldwide Market for WiMAX—Infrastructure, Devices, and Subscribers
WiMAX continues to make gains. Network trials have become commercial deployments. Well known vendors have added the technology to their product portfolios. Despite all of the positive events of the last 12 months, WiMAX still faces much uncertainty. Investor pressure could force Sprint to pull back on its announced deployment. As the largest planned deployment, Sprint's actions could impact what other carriers do with WiMAX, and negatively impact the entire WiMAX community. Sprint's decision on WiMAX could impact up to half of all infrastructure shipments and revenues in 2008.
In this report: -Subscriber forecasts include both users and revenues -North America subscriber forecast broken out between US and Canada -Asia/Pacific subscriber forecasts for 18 countries -Updates on key market events for the last 12 months -Infrastructure forecasts shown as base station sectors -Device forecast for CPE, laptop cards, embedded laptops, and other portable devices
More than Just Laptops—Worldwide Hotspot are Impacted by Other Mobile Devices
Using a hotspot to access the Internet wirelessly has become very common. Hotspots are no longer the realm of the corporate traveler, but are becoming common for personal use as well. This report provides In-Stat's in-depth worldwide review of the market for 2007.
Included in this report: 1. Five year forecast for worldwide deployments, including traditional single site locations and municipal networks. Deployment forecast segmented by global region and by venue. 2. Five year subscriber revenue forecast, segmented between North America and the rest of the world, and In-Stat's views on how to grow revenues. 3. Research includes both survey and supply side data. 4. Report examines the growing trend of non-laptop devices for hotspot access. 5. Covers the recent happenings in the municipal network market and its issues with coverage.
This report looks at the worldwide market for Wi-Fi mesh networking.
Included in this report are the following:
1. Discussion on technology and market changes 2. Vendor profiles 3. Market share information for shipments and revenues 4. Five-year forecast for shipments and revenues
The Road to 4G: Will LTE, UMB and WiMAX Just Be Stops Along the Way?
Companies are extremely uncomfortable talking about "4G" technologies per se, since the ITU has not defined 4G yet. Most companies believe that the characteristics of IMT-Advanced, as defined by the ITU, will represent a definition of 4G. Two expected requirements within IMT-Advanced are that technologies be OFDMA-based, and that they support 100Mbps for mobile applications. Long Term Evolution (LTE), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), and 802.16m WiMAX all fulfill these requirements, and are the primary 4G technology contenders.
Each of the 4G technologies has a head cheerleader, with Intel supporting WiMAX, Ericsson touting LTE, and Qualcomm preferring UMB.
LTE, UMB and 802.16m WiMAX are expected to be initially implemented in 2010; however, looking at the slow uptake rate of EV-DO and HSPA, it may be 2012 and beyond. In-Stat actually forecasts that GSM/GPRS and GSM/EDGE handsets will still make up the majority of cellular handsets in 2011, with EV-DO and HSPA handsets expected to overtake 2G technologies in 2012. This, perhaps, points to a slow build-out of 4G networks, in which operators will maintain their 3G networks for a long time, running these as complementary to their 4G networks.
Initial implementations of LTE, UMB and 802.16m technologies may fall short of throughput and other expectations, with later enhancements to one or more of these technologies, or even some type of technology blend, actually bringing real 4G to the table.
Sprint and Clearwire's WiMAX partnership was a major step forward for the US WiMAX market. It greatly increases both companies' chances of being successful.
2006 WiMAX Equipment Market Share - Waiting to Sprint
This report provides worldwide WiMAX equipment market share for 2006. Equipment includes base stations, gateways/modems, and laptop cards. This report also provides an update to In-Stat's WiMAX subscriber forecast. This report provides the following:
1. Total equipment market shares for 2006 2. Market shares for base station revenues 3. Market shares for both CPE revenue and shipments 4. Updated service subscriber forecast, broken out by region
WiBro in Korea: Ambitious Launch - Turbulent Take Off
In 2006 South Korea became the first country to launch Mobile WiMAX/WiBro services. Operators were once ambitious about subscriber growth, but soon disappointed by the reality. The limited network coverage and available user devices significantly impacted the subscriber growth. By the end of 2006, the total users were just above 1,000.
In an effort to increase subscribers, KT is pushing device makers to come out with a wider selection of WiBro phones, USB dongles, and computers. It is also trying to provide various content services. SK Telecom, on the other hand, has decided to wait for KT to drive the market development before committing substantial recourses on WiBro. Meanwhile, South Korea WiBro vendors and operators are trying to reach out to the vast international market. In-Stat believes that as wireless broadband is on the rising edge globally, South Korean players surely have the chance to make the gains!
In-Stat expects the global WiMAX chipset market to reach approximately 21 million units in 2011, growing from 300 thousand chipset units in 2006. The overwhelming majority of 2005 and 2006 WiMAX chipsets were Fixed WiMAX (802.16d)-compliant, with a very small percentage in 2006 representing chipsets utilized in early WiBro devices. Fujitsu, Intel, Sequans, and Wavesat were the Fixed WiMAX baseband market leaders in 2005 and 2006. Leaders in the Fixed WiMAX RF IC space in 2005 and 2006 were Sierra Monolithics, Analog Devices, RF Magic, SiGe Semiconductor, TI, and Atmel.
All four leading Fixed WiMAX baseband leaders have already announced roll-out plans for their Mobile WiMAX Wave 2 solutions, along with RFIC vendors Sierra Monolithics, Analog Devices, and Atmel. There are also a large number of IC vendors focused specifically on Mobile WiMAX, including early leaders Runcom and Beceem, along with Altair Semiconductor, Amicus, ApaceWave, Redpine Signals, and XROnet, on the baseband side. On the radio side, NXP, GCT Semiconductor, and AsicAhead are completely focused on Mobile WiMAX.
On the base station side, picoChip was a leader in providing the PHY for fixed WiMAX base stations for 2005 and 2006. TI is also pushing into the WiMAX base station component market, providing complete reference designs for quick deployment of WiMAX infrastructure.
For the last five years, cellular carriers around the world have been deploying 3G systems. In the early years there were many problems, but over time, the roll-outs of 3G have gone on like clockwork. Currently, there are more than 190 3G systems (WCDMA/HSDPA & CDMA2000 1X EV-DO Rev. 0 & A) in operation, and another 20 carriers have purchased 3G infrastructure (but haven't commercially launched it for one reason or another). This report lists carriers that have both deployed 3G systems and purchased 3G equipment, but have not yet deployed it. Included in this list are the cellular carriers’ names, the technology used, country, launch date, and the date of their last 3G equipment contract announced. In most cases, the equipment maker that sold equipment to the operator is also listed. 3G deployments are listed by date, technology, and country. This report is aimed at everyone that tracks the 3G market and watches deployments. In addition, this report is excellent for those attempting to forecast the spread of 3G in the future.
The information for this report is the result of a survey conducted February of 2007 with In-Stat's Technology Adoption Panel (TAP). The purpose of the survey was to see what attributes respondents look for when selecting a wireless broadband data provider, their interest in bundling wireless broadband with their existing home broadband service, and their preference for different wireless broadband services. Some of the key survey findings are as follows: - 65.5% of all respondents have experience with wireless broadband services. - Top two attributes when selecting a wireless broadband provider were availability and reliability. - Over 50% of respondents would change their current home broadband provider for one that bundles wireless with a home broadband service. - In a head-to-head comparison respondents indicated a significant preference for WiMAX over cellular data and Wi-Fi services. - Respondents' interest in cellular data dramatically decreased when presented with pricing. The data in report is segmented by users' experience with wireless broadband services and attitudes toward technology. Service comparisons for this report were based on laptop data services, not cell phone based Internet access.
WiMAX in Asia/Pacific: A Well Laid Foundation for Prominent Future Growth
The year 2006 was a remarkable one for WiMAX. In the Asia/Pacific region, the South Korea version of mobile WiMAX—WiBro services—was commercialized in June. Although the subscriber growth was below expectation due to limited network coverage and lack of user devices, operators are working hard to grow their businesses after the initial difficulties. In other parts of the region, especially in emerging countries where the current household broadband penetration rates were extremely low, governments quickly built a pro-WiMAX regulatory framework. Operators also gained much confidence from the Sprint-Nextel decision to adopt WiMAX for their 4G network, and were actively conducting trials in hopes that WiMAX would lead to a lucrative wireless broadband business. In general, a solid foundation was laid by the joint efforts of market regulators, operators, and eager equipment vendors: prominent growth of the WiMAX market is highly possible in the Asia/Pacific region. Measuring the market growth potential in numbers, from a lean base of 0.27 million WiMAX and Pre-WiMAX subscribers in 2006, total WiMAX subscribers in 16 Asia/Pacific countries are expected to reach 31.43 million by 2012. Another 7.63 million users are expected to adopt the WiMAX-backhauled Wi-Fi network by 2012. The sum of subscription revenue collected by operators for both services will increase from US$438.9 million in 2006 to US$5092.0 million in 2012.
3G, Wi-Fi, WiMAX and Others Battle for Wireless Supremacy
Today there are three main technologies capable of broadcasting wireless data at broadband speeds to consumer devices, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and cellular 3G. These technologies are very different from one another. In many ways, they complement each other, but, at the same time, each is competing with each other in some areas as well. 1. 3G/Cellular will continue to dominate for voice 2. Wi-Fi deployments will continue to grow for the next five years 3. WiMAX needs to quickly become embedded in consumer electronic devices This report shows In-Stat's view of how each technology will compete and co-exist for different regions of the world.
