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ARTICLE
By Cintia Garza, Market Analyst
WiMAX in Latin America has demonstrated substantial growth and promising opportunities for operators. WiMAX operators in this region are actively defining strategies, implementing trials, deploying networks, and formulating plans for the “mobile broadband wireless ecosystem.” In the 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz frequency bands, there are nearly 50 license holders in Central America and 126 license holders in South America. However, not all of these licenses are active; more than half of BWA/WiMAX license holders are still in the evaluation or trial stage, and a few more have yet to put their spectrum to use. Only 20% of these licenses have a nationwide scope. The country with the largest number of nationwide licenses in this region is Honduras, accounting for a total of 9 licenses; the country with the largest number of WiMAX licenses awarded is Brazil, accounting for 30 regional licenses. Deployment strategies vary among operators. Axtel (Mexico) and Entel (Chile), for example, have launched their networks, but they have deferred their nationwide rollout in anticipation of the 802.16e standard. Omnivision (Venezuela), on the other hand, is already deploying mobile WiMAX using WiBRO in partnership with Samsung. This is the first deployment in the world to implement the WiMAX mobile standard 802.16e in the 2.5 GHz frequency (in Korea, the frequency used is 2.3 GHz), with the company offering WiMAX plans with downloading speeds of up to 6 Mbps. Telmex (Chile) started commercial WiMAX deployments of 802.16e-2005 in March 2007, selecting Alcatel Lucent and offering speeds of up to 1 Mbps. TVA Brazil has built a trial network with Nortel. Deployed in the city of Sao Paulo in the 2.5 GHz frequency band, the network includes Nortel's mobile MIMO-powered WiMAX (802.16e) solution. Paraguayan operators Telecel and Personal have not yet shared their mobile WiMAX plans. They have introduced a broadband wireless service that uses a combination of WiMAX and proprietary technology from Alvarion. These companies, unlike other operators in the CALA region, are targeting residential, small-business, and medium-enterprise customers. However, the downloading speeds they offer are the slowest of the region, such as 64 kbps and 128 kbps for residential users. (Our definition of broadband is service at speeds not less than 256 kbps, but the term’s definition varies among operators.) Many WiMAX operators are testing early versions of the 802.16-2005 standard or selecting equipment suppliers. Velocom (Argentina), Embratel (Brazil), and Telmex (Chile) are currently using Alcatel equipment; TV Cable (Ecuador) is using Airspan; TVA Brazil has chosen Samsung; Axtel (Mexico) is deploying 802.16-2004 equipment from Airspan; and Orbitel (Colombia) is deploying equipment from Nokia Siemens, Alvarion, and SR Telecom. Axtel is testing 802.16-2005 from several equipment vendors, but has declined to talk about the negotiations that are underway. The same applies to Ertach (Argentina), which is deploying 802.16-2004 equipment from Alvarion. The CALA region is characterized by the lowest WiMAX ARPU for both residential and business segments, US$41.99 and US$99.94, respectively. This can be explained by the low-price offerings of operators such as Axtel, which has pricing plans as low as US$39 for business users, with speeds of up to 1 Mbps. It is expected that the Mobile WiMAX offerings can be priced the same or lower than the fixed WiMAX offerings. For example, Omnivision (Venezuela) is offering fixed WiMAX at VEB 149,000 (US$69) and Mobile WiMAX at VEB 99,000 (US$46), at the same speed (6 Mbps). When the mobile version of WiMAX becomes a reality, global WiMAX demand will likely increase. Latin American operators are putting their hopes on this premise and are getting ready to migrate or upgrade their current fixed broadband wireless infrastructure to the one that promises affordable broadband wireless to their currently underserved home users.
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