WiMax's gaining ground

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 6 March 2007

WiMax , a long-range wireless broadband technology, is gaining ground faster than expected despite scepticism and resistance from certain key industry executives. It’s unclear at this stage whether the deployment of this technology will benefit current mobile networks although there’s also clear support for its speedy adoption.

Who dislikes WiMax and why?

• Arun Sarin – Arun is the Chief Executive of Vodafone, one of the most influential figures in the industry. He has made his dislike for WiMax clear at the recent 3GSM World Congress. "Although WiMax may well be a commercial reality in some markets, it's far from being 'prime time'. The industry as a whole should work faster with its plans for LTE" (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

Reason : Arun sees ‘the long-term evolution (LTE), a GSM standard taking 3G into the future,’ as a better alternative (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

• Craig Ehrlich – Craig is the Chairman of the GSM Association and also made his dislike for WiMax clear: "Despite the hype around WiMax, it's not that great a technology. I'd accept if you perhaps said that of CDMA technology” (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007). Also, "Besides, handsets that conform to WiMax aren't in abundance. We (the association) don't have an official position on WiMax. Our members are free to adopt it if they like" (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

Reason : Craig sees code division multiple access (CDMA), the technology underpinning 3G, as a better alternative to WiMax.

The very fact that they’ve made such statements tell us that they’re worried about the influence WiMax already has on the industry. It’s certain that WiMax poses a threat to profitability and this might be the real reason why players like Sarin and Ehrlich dislike it.

Who’s for WiMax and why?

• Andy McKinnon – Andy is ‘responsible for Motorola's WiMax business development in Europe, Middle East and Africa’ (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007). He made his support for WiMax clear: "On being granted licences, start-ups - especially those in emerging markets - are faced with daunting deadlines by when they should have deployed their network and become operational. The cost and ease with which operators are able to deploy WiMax is the major drawcard. You don't expect them to start digging the ground to lay cables, which in some cases are vandalised within days" (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

Reason : Andy supports WiMax mainly because of the cost and ease of deployment associated with WiMax.

• Tariq Malik – Tariq is the Chief Executive Officer of Wateen Telecoms. Tariq made his support for WiMax clear: "I can't imagine how long it would take us to lay fibre in a country that has close to 170m inhabitants and has a poor fixed line penetration" (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007). In reference to Pakistan where Wateen Telecoms is ‘set to launch fixed-wireless services’ (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

Reason : Tariq supports WiMax mainly because of the timesaving component that can be associated with WiMax’s deployment.

• Stephano Mattiello – Stephano is Motorola’s Regional Sales Director in charge of sub-Saharan Africa. Stephano made his support for WiMax clear: "What people need in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa is basic connectivity and mobility. The argument that there are only a few WiMax-enabled handsets in circulation can't hold for long, because handset manufacturers were now tailoring their new products around WiMax” (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007). Neotel (SNO) ‘recently awarded Motorola a contract entrusting the US-based telecoms group with the task of planning Neotel's WiMax and CDMA networks’ (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

Reason : Stephano supports WiMax mainly because of ‘basic connectivity and mobility’ issues.

It’s clear that the above companies and others such as Huawei, Nokia, Intel, et cetera support the deployment of WiMax.

What are the real reasons behind the dislike for WiMax?

The threat to profitability seems to be one of the main reasons.

"From a purely commercial viewpoint, WiMax poses a serious threat to the profitability of established operators. They (established operators) are burdened with legacy networks whose cost of upgrading would run into billions of dollars. "Faced with competition from new entrants boasting the so-called next generation networks, they have no choice but to stifle growth of new entrants" (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007). This is according to telecoms analyst, Arthur Goldstuck, and ADSL South Africa tends to agree with him.

What about the drawback that WiMax can only work from a fixed position?

This is not the case anymore since ‘the latest version can reach out to smaller devices that are in motion, including laptops’ (The future is WiMax, Mwanza, 27 February 2007).

ADSL South Africa(Broadband South Africa) welcomes any support for the deployment or adoption of WiMax since it will clearly benefit the consumer and others on the end of the day.