Maravedis reportedly published a report, “WiMAXCounts,” which finds that though the WiMAX market is chugging along okay, the trend indicates that it appears to be losing ground to broadband wireless.
The reason that Average Revenue per User is falling is global economic inertia, and it’s prompting WiMAX rates to decrease, as consumers to shift toward flat rates for both limited and unlimited broadband usage.
“These are tough times for mobile WiMAX – vendors and leading operators are struggling to fund their WiMAX plans,” said Adlane Fellah, chief executive officer and founder of Maravedis. He said that mobile WiMAX is being forced to take a backseat to Long Term Evolution and that LTE will become the main 4G technology among Tier 1 mobile operators.
Maravedis is a telecom market research and analysis company. WiMAXCounts reports review and evaluate figures from Broadband Wireless Access and WiMAX operators and subscribers across the globe. However, it is important to note that the survey does not take into account each and every service provider and Customer Premises Equipment vendor, and only currently available data is presented below.
BWA and WiMAX CPE touched 2.68 million units in Q308, up by 0.402 million from 2.278 million in Q208 – a mere 15 percent increase when compared with the 91 percent rise from Q307.
ARPU for Q308 was down by $0.25 to check-in at $46.45 from $46.70 for residential usage in Q208. In the business segment the drop was significant. It dropped by $9.82 from $135.30 in Q208 to $125.48 in Q308 – a 7.26 percent stutter.
Service revenues for Q308 were up 15 percent from Q208 and stood at $492 million, up $83.64 million from $ 408.36 million.
One statistic provides a positive trend and portrays a relatively healthy picture. Base station sectors installed and made operational totalled 121,269 in Q308, up by 44,870 from 76, 400, a 37 percent increase. Although the average subscriber base is 15,000 per base station deployment, this figure is better than CPE deployment.
“The picture is not all bleak however,” said Cintia Garza, co-author of the report and WiMAXCounts team leader. She said that more mobile WIMAX enabled devices were certified during the quarter, and coupled with the fact that base station sector growth rate outpaced that of CPEs, the indications are that networks are expanding ahead of the adoption curve.
“It is important to keep in mind that WiMAX is just now entering a phase of commercial availability,” said Robert Syputa, a senior partner at the firm. “The lean WiMAX ecosystem has already reached price points for ICs, modules and devices to compete in volume markets,”
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Vivek Naik is a contributing editor for MobilityTechzone. To read more of Vivek's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
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