WiMax In 2010 — Too Little, Too Late?

CWmike writes "By the end of 2010, users in more than 80 US cities may be able to ditch their cable modems, T1 setups and DSL lines — and the Wi-Fi routers that go with them — in favor of WiMax wireless technology. Wait, haven't we heard that before? WiMax has been promised 'any day now' for years, but WiMax vendors such as Clearwire Communications LLC have suffered numerous delays in rolling out services. A recent ramp-up in Clearwire deployments bodes well for WiMax, but it may not have the chance to fully get off the ground before a competing technology called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) does it in. Craig Mathias, principal analyst at Farpoint Group and a Computerworld columnist, sees WiMax taking a minority stake in the wireless broadband future. 'LTE will eventually be a combined broadband voice/data solution that can do everything that WiMax can and more,' he said. Mathias believes that LTE could get up to 80% of the global market share in future cellular installations. 'This leaves WiMax with a potential market share that cannot exceed 20% — but that's still a huge number, assuming 4 billion users around 2020 or so," he said. 'You do the math. The opportunity is nothing to sneeze at.'"

Comments

Umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would want to ditch a perfectly good DSL line, for a slow, unstable and laggy wireless?

Wimax is probably great for people on the move, but I just don't see it replacing my 10/10mbit line.

Re:Umm

[Shag]

Living on one of the less-populated islands in Hawaii, I have no reasonable hope of WiMax or LTE any time in the near future.

Oh, sure, ClearWire has been in Honolulu for ages, and in some of the more touristy areas of other islands, but here in the state's 2nd-largest city? Nah. Maybe the rain breaks it, I dunno.

These days, the options are DSL, Cable, 3G GSM from AT&T or maybe T-Mobile (can't imagine that being fast enough to do anything with, given load times on my iPhone) or EV-DO (presumably first-generation). Oh, and some of the off-grid folks in the hinterlands probably have satellite. I've considered the EV-DO option, but I do some work from home that requires dual VNC sessions, so I'm not sure whether it would be practical yet.

The DSL is at least pretty rock-stable - It's only gone out one or two times in ten years.

easy money

[Takichi]

Wow, getting rich is easy! After analysis, I believe my unproven product will get 80% market share. I'll just wait for the cash to start rolling in now. I feel bad for all my competitors wasting their time!

Re:Depends on when they will roll out wimax

[tagno25]

Where as in USA which is a bit larger I don't think you'll have okish LTE connectivity until 2020.

More like 2050. We do not even have decent 3G outside the highly populated areas by 4-5 miles. There are even areas that do not even have edge or gprs near me (and plenty that have no cellular coverage to even make a call).

lol what?

[4D6963]

assuming 4 billion users

Can I have some of what that guy's smoking? There is hardly even 4 billion electricity users, let alone 4 billion literate people.

Re:This is a non issue

[dantino]

It's true that the underlying technologies behind LTE and WiMax are nearly identical. However, the telecommunications sector has shown over and over that politics/regulation play a more important role than technology. The main advantage brought forward by WiMax is that it is designed as a full IP solutions. Providers only sell the bandwidth (much like DSL), which is of interest to the final consumer since he make use of any internet application (voip, video conference, gaming, ..). This goes much against the traditional business model of mobile operator in the US. So, even if LTE, make it by 2010 (which I hugely doubt). It will likely be tied to an overpriced features business model (sms, voicemail, called id, etc)