Everything is well on track for WiMAX to reach its projected coverage numbers. As of 2009, WiMAX is covering over 621 million people.
Market Research
Generation Y, the youth of the nation, have always been targeted as main consumers and for good reason. We are young, ignorant, and don’t keep our wallets pinched shut. We are more likely than our parents to spend money on the latest technological fads, even with arbitrary phone companies creating TV commercials for the benefit of those under the ancient age of “parenting.” Like, seriously, who uses Cingular anymore? Idk, not my BFF Jill. LOL.
All kidding aside, there is a method to the madness of quirky marketing executives. There is significant money to be made from those that fall within the criteria for Generation Y- born between the mid-1970s to early 2000s. A recent report from the Financial Brand came out discussing the market research statistics of Generation Y, and it paints an entirely different picture than the one the media depicts of our recession. A majority of Generation Yers wouldn’t consider their situation to be “bad”, more than 60% of them don’t think that their financial situation has worsened and 89% of them don’t think that they will be worse off than their parents. That makes them the ideal customer in this unsteady economy.
Clearwire, a WiMAX company, has finally come to terms with their customer base. Most middle-aged people wouldn’t know the first thing about 4G, not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. They are content with the Internet connection that they pay a little bit extra for with their cable service. And it works quite well for most purposes, believe it or not. So, why should they switch now and disturb the relationship they have with their current provider? A few seconds extra spent surfing the web isn’t worth it. These people understand the value of life, not the substitute used these days in terms of social connections found online.
The current generation, however, is much different. We find friends in other countries with just a few clicks. We need to watch that video NOW. G-d forbid we don’t see overnight Internet celebrity Antoine Dodson’s infamous rant within the next minute. We live in the 21st century and we are entitled, aren’t we? The word buffering will soon be just as foreign as music sharing program Napster.
Clearwire has found a way to put money into this sorry phenomenon. They have done research and marketed this group of obnoxious young adults. … Read the rest
Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are the companies leading the way for this new product. They exude confidence during technology fairs concluding that the 4G revolution is upon us. They’ve developed products to help connect to the network such as portable modems, usb drives, and sim cards. They’ve even entitled their networks; Sprint’s being WIMAX (World-wide Interoperability for Microwave Access) while Verizon and AT&T’s shall be called LTE (Long Term Evolution). However, perhaps their confidence is missed guided and their promise of debuting in 2013 is unrealistic.
WIMAX developed by the Sprint and Clear companies respectively, seems to be losing ground in the United States amidst their attempt to bring WIMAX success domestically. Though they’ve raised 3.2 billion dollars in investments to produce the network, Sprint and Clear may have underestimated how expensive it is to blanket the country in connectivity. Sprint, the lesser of the three major telecommunications distributors in the country, may not have enough currency to continue production if the 3.2 billion isn’t enough, and investors Google, Time Warner, and Intel may grow weary of waiting and pull their investments early. Also those dependent on their WIMAX’s success is far less than those who are dependent on LTE”s success due to the fact that Verizon and AT&T are far larger companies. … Read the rest
ABI Research recently announced that it expects almost 2 million WiMax users by the end of 2009. There are many providers and many different ways WiMax technology is being deployed.
In the United States, Clearwire has declared it has 173,000 subscribers. Another big WiMax market is Russia. Yota has been growing at a decent rate reaching 100,000 subscribers in August and 200,000 in October for WiMax service in Russia. PacketOne, a WiMax provider in Malaysia, has reached 130,000 subscribers.
UQ Communications once expected to reach 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2009 in South Korea. It is behind schedule in its rollout and will fall short of that initial target. South Korea has seen KT’s and SKT’s subscriber numbers remain stagnant, while these service providers prepare for another big push as a third WiMAX service provider comes to South Korea.t
The WiMax Forum Congress of Americas stated that there are 10 million WiMax subscripers worldwide in 540 WiMAX network deployments in 146 countries around the world. There are more than 150 deployments in the Americas alone.
Product providers flocked to Ft. Lauderdale to showcase their expansive WiMax products and to show what’s coming next. Beceem Communications said it is on track to sell 3 million WiMAX chips in 2009. The company announced the launch of “4G Turbo,” a number of Uplink performance improvements to the company’s 4G WiMAX chips. The 4G Turbo improvements further extend the performance of Beceem’s chips, and the features can be used in any WiMAX network as they work with every Wave 2-compliant 4G-WiMAX base station.… Read the rest
