WiMAX - the way forward?

With the fixed-line markets now appearing to be tapped out, incumbent and alternative operators are seeking fresh opportunities to deliver high-speed video, voice, data, and value-added services to the mass market. The costs of building large-capacity fibre-optic networks remain very high, while the much-vaunted third-generation (3G) mobile telephony networks promise much and deliver comparatively little for the high subscription charges involved. This makes it imperative for operators and service providers alike to find new ways of delivering advanced telecommunications services at a reasonable cost.

The rising popularity of wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) networks points to the likely success of fixed and mobile wireless access platforms in meeting this requirement. But Wi-Fi offers only limited coverage and mobility, whereas WiMAX promises greater reach, capacity, and flexibility for customers, network operators, and service providers.

Consequently, there was much interest in the licensing of 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz, and 3.5GHz wireless frequencies around the world in 2006, and this interest is set to rise in 2007 as vendors receive certification for their WiMAX products and operators increase their commitment to rolling out nationwide networks using WiMAX-based equipment.

Whether WiMAX will ultimately prove to be a worthy alternative to wireless platforms such as EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA, or UMTS or fixed-line offerings such as xDSL remains to be seen, but the technology is expected to form a key element in most next-generation networks worldwide by the end of the decade and will see billions of dollars spent in its deployment over the next three years.

But who are the key WiMAX players and what are their strategies?
Which companies are receiving the lion's share of network deployment contracts?
Which countries are poised to license WiMAX operators?
And where are there still opportunities for new entrants in the market?

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802.16-2004 — also known as WiMax — is almost ready for the actual prime-time. Not that the fixed wireless broadband technology has ever been out of the spotlight in the last 18 months. That won't change during the run-up to the release of products that are actually tested for interoperability, especially with chip vendors who want the market share that should come from the WiMax mindshare.

Sequans Communications, with its headquarters in Paris, has announced two WiMax System-on-Chip (SoC) products, one for base stations, another for subscriber stations. Along with the company's S-Cube software (for Sequans' Software Solution), the chips are the first in the WiMax line from the fabless semiconductor company.

A principal goal: making sure subscriber stations are customer-installable. The company believes that's a requirement for mass adoption.

Sequans’ vice president of marketing and business development, Bernard Aboussouan, says the company's SoCs have "more capability than plain vanilla 802.16-2004." A second version of the chip will heavily target the mobile space, specifically with the 802.16e spec that's coming for Mobile WiMax. Sequans counts Airspan among its customers for standard WiMax equipment, but Aboussouan says Sequans is already working with other customers to get WiMax chips embedded directly into laptops and even smaller devices.

That's not where Wavesat is going, though it wouldn't be hard. The company said this week its own WiMax Customer Premises Equipment (CPEs, aka subscriber stations) chip would be available on a miniPCI module. While this is a standard used for making additions to laptops all the time, these modules would target Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and Original Device Manufacturers (ODMs) making CPEs.

This move, says Vijay Dube, vice president of marketing and business development at Wavesat, will do more to drive up volume on WiMax products than anything else, as Asian companies will snap up the modules to build them into products, just like they did in the past with Wi-Fi.

"It simplifies the time to market for customers," says Dube. "It brings cost down for the overall solution." The company has six ODMs signed up to use the miniPCI module already.

The miniPCI module will run in the 3.5GHz radio frequency band. Wavesat is offering a development platform for the miniPCI module which is powered by the company's Evolutive WiMax DM256 chip.

While Wavesat isn't necessarily targeting laptop makers with this release, Dube says WiMax will "be in laptops before 802.16e for certain applications.... the difference is hand-off. Once you want to move around from one cell site to another, you need 16e. But with a campus area, like a university campus [with one base station], 802.16-2004 will still work."

Both companies have products in with the WiMax Forum for certification testing and expect to see a ramp-up for major product shipments late this year and on into 2006.

By Robert Hoskins

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