MWC: WiMax's fixed user base shifting to mobile

BARCLEONA -- WiMax’s critics often point to the fact that the vast majority of operators worldwide deploy the technology as a fixed wireless DSL-replacement solution, questioning its authenticity as a true mobile broadband technology. While that may be true in terms of operator numbers, it’s no longer true in terms of subscribers, according to the WiMax Forum. The Forum estimates that the global mix between mobile and fixed broadband customers on WiMAX networks worldwide is now at an even 50-50, with the mobile side growing far faster.

Forum Director of Marketing Declan Byrne said that the Forum doesn’t track subscriber numbers itself, but based on the average of multiple analyst reports, the number of global WiMax subscribers is at about 13 million. In WiMax’s infancy most global subscribers were using fixed wireless services, Byrne said, but in 2010 the high-profile launches of several big mobile WiMax operators such as Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) and Sprint (NYSE:S), UQ Communications in Japan and multiple operators in Taiwan and southeast Asia tipped the scales toward mobile.

The majority of the world’s 582 WiMax operators are still offering primarily fixed services but many of the biggest are focused either entirely or in part on mobility, Byrne said. Those operators’ scale will drive up mobile’s percentage of the global subscriber base even as big fixed wireless deployments such as BSNL’s in India and Axtel’s in Mexico get into high gear.
“It really is 20% or of the operators that are doing 80% of the business,” Byrne said. “You’re going to see a continuing predominance of mobile solutions in WiMax.”

What’s more, most WiMax operators have deployed Mobile WiMax technology (based on the IEEE 802.16e standard) even if they’re using it for fixed access. Their networks will allow them to offer mobile services in the future though it may not be their plan today. The Forum has already seen several of its larger, including BSNL and Axtel, start trialing mobile services on networks originally intended as DSL replacement systems. There has also been far more harmonization in the industry in the last year, which will drive down device costs and make mobile devices available in markets they previously didn’t reach, Byrne said.

Nearly all of the world’s operators are now deploying WiMax in 10 MHz channels, doing away the odd bandwidth configurations that isolated many operators’ networks globally. Also more devices are incorporating multi-band chips that allow them to span the differing global WiMax frequencies, ranging from 2.3 GHz to 3.5 GHz.

It’s basically becoming a lot easier for fixed-wireless WiMax operators to go mobile, which is encouraging many of them to rethink their business models, Byrne said, though he added that he’s under no illusions that WiMax will be as dominant a technology as LTE in the next few years.
“We knew we weren’t going to take over the world,” Byrne said. “But you’d be surprised just how many operators are using WiMax for mobile broadband.