WiMax May Never Amount to Much, Says Report

Posted 10/13/2009 at 6:25am | by Paul Lilly

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According to market research firm Ovum, WiMax doesn't have much of a future outside of niche markets. In a report titled WiMax in emerging markets, the opportunity assessed, Ovum said that this holds true both for developed regions and emerging markets.

"Two thirds of the 300+ WiMax networks globally are in the emerging markets of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Latin America," said Angel Dobardziev, practice leader at Ovum. "Yet, most emerging market WiMax operators currently have thousands, or tens of thousands of subscribers, rather than the hundreds of thousands of subscribers they planned to have at this stage."

Dobardziev attributes part of the problem to the pricing structure, pointing out that on a non-subsidized basis, WiMax is priced and positioned as a broadband option for businesses or wealthy consumers. Ovum doesn't see this changing any time soon and predicts that WiMax will account for less than 5 percent of the 1.5 billion fixed and mobile broadband access connections in the emerging markets by 2014.

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