PRESS RELEASE
| June 2010: Press Release |
7.2 Million BWA/WiMAX Subscribers Reached in Q1 2010
WiMAX deployments continue despite questions about its long term survival
MONTREAL, Canada, June 23, 2010 –2.3 million BWA/WiMAX subscribers were added in 2009 according to the 11th issue of the 4GCounts Quarterly Report from Maravedis (http://www.maravedis-bwa.com).
Yota’s decision to migrate its network to LTE looks very political and is hurting the WiMAX ecosystem, which will affect the deployment plans of other WiMAX players. “Carriers are worried about the perceived lack of commitment towards 802.16m” said Maravedis CEO and founder Adlane Fellah. “However, despite the hype surrounding TD-LTE, there isn’t much of an ecosystem in the near term” he added.
“Spectrum winners, especially those in India, cannot afford to wait 2-3 years before deploying TD-LTE while WIMAX deployments move forward,” said Cintia Garza, team leader for 4GCounts. . “And, if a carrier deploys WiMAX now with the intention of migrating to TD-LTE in the future, a significant challenge emerges in how to manage the millions of WiMAX device users.”
On the LTE side, Maravedis anticipates that 18 LTE networks will be operational worldwide by the end of the year 2010. “However, most of them will be covering reduced areas in their respective countries, so we expect multimode 3G-LTE USB dongles to be crucial for LTE services to attract customers” said Esteban Monturus, co-author of the report.
Mobile data usage continues to grow across technologies. “While large wireless carriers such as AT&T are moving away from unlimited data plans, Clearwire continues to offer unlimited data plans” noted Basharat Ashai, co-author of the report
THIS QUARTER’S SUMMARY FINDINGS
- The residential and business WiMAX ARPU generated among operators during Q1 2010 across all regions was of US $42 and US $121 respectively
- Total BWA/WiMAX revenues for the full year ended 2009 totaled US $3.03 billion, compared to US $1.69 billion at the end of 2008,
- Indoor modems have the largest market share accounting for over 3.6 million units or 62%, followed by 1.11 million USB Dongles and, 528,000 PCMCIA cards
- Base station sectors installed base as of Q1 2010 totaled 308,006
MARAVEDIS is a leading analyst firm focusing on 4G and broadband wireless technologies and markets.
Press Contact:
Adlane Fellah, Research Director
afellah@maravedis-bwa.com
Phone: +1 305 992 3196