The number of subscribers to mobile WiMAX (News - Alert) services is expected to approach 59 million in 2015, said ABI Research in its new study.

That represents a positive forecast in light of recent economic conditions.

However, research analyst Xavier Ortiz noted that WiMAX’s growth has not been as early or as strong as many would have hoped several years ago.

Ortiz said that the factors impeding WiMAX’s growth haven’t been technological, but economic and psychological.

“The recession certainly played a role, making investors wary and delaying some deployments. On top of that, delays in the formation of the new Clearwire (News - Alert) have constrained the rest of the ecosystem to some degree, from subscribers to devices and chipsets,” he said.

Subscriber growth and base station shipments go hand in hand, and despite uncertainty among many operators as to which mobile 4G platform – WiMAX or TD-LTE – to choose, ABI Research’s (News - Alert) forecasts see WiMAX base station shipments continuing to grow (albeit at a slowing pace) through the current 2015 forecast period.

“Depending on the particular vendor, much of the hardware in a WiMAX base station may be re-usable for TD-LTE (News - Alert)”, said Ortiz.

He said that service providers adopting WiMAX but interested in upgrading their networks have been choosing those infrastructure vendors that can offer the options of staying with WiMAX (moving towards 802.16m) or moving towards TD-LTE.

“This creates a sense of reassurance for service providers,” said Ortiz.

ABI Research’s new “WiMAX” study presents an overall view of the WiMAX market, examining its progress since the beginning of 2009, the challenges it has had to overcome, and likely future developments.

The data include information on infrastructures, base station vendors and CPE shipments, segmented population coverage and revenue.