Deployment

India auctions off licenses for 3 WiMax spectra

on October 3, 2009   |   1 comment



India-Wimax-Auction-2009
According to Network World, the Indian government plans to auction off three WiMax spectrum licenses in the country in December. 10 days before the WiMax auction, the government will be completing the issue of three 3G licenses. The bid for the 3G spectrum starts at $716 million per operator and at $360 million for the WiMax spectrum.

The licensing of 3G mobile-phone services and fixed wireless broadband (IEEE 802.16d WiMax standard) services will make India about $5.1 billion, India’s IT/ Telecommunications Minister, Andimuthu Raja said. “Since the number of slots are only four, the auction price will be more,” Raja stated and he has a good point. Given that the auctions are open to foreign companies, there will likely be intense competition to win the licenses among the local operators and foreign giants such as NTT DoCoMo, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom, skyrocketing the prices into the billions.

The Indian government already handed out 3G licenses to the state-owned service providers Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanager Telephone Nigam, in early 2009. India is the second largest wireless market worldwide with 415.25 million current subscribers according to figures from c. Nevertheless,  most of it comes from mobile voice and SMS function rather than from wireless Internet access.

The WiMax Forum predicts that India will comprise 20% of the WiMax market (or 19 million subscribers) in 2012. The Economic Times of India reported that a study by US market research firm Strategy Analytics believes India will become the largest WiMax user base in the Asia-Pacific by 2013, reaching 14 million by 2013 and growing annually at 130%. With these forecasts, the future looks bright for the four companies that will win the WiMax spectrum. Taking into consideration a population of one billion, it may be one of the greatest ROI currently offered in the global market.… Read the rest

Clearwire launches WiMax Service in Salem, Oregon

on October 1, 2009   |   1 comment



satellite-wimax

According to a press release, Clearwire publicized today that it has officially expanded its 4G network coverage to Salem, Oregon, enabling Clear account holders to access Internet anywhere within the WiMax coverage area at true broadband speeds. “CLEAR is excited to bring to Salem residents the super fast mobile Internet experience they’re used to having at home or the office, anywhere around town or on the go,” said Tim Ross, Regional General Manager of the Northwest region. “We’re providing a valuable new category of Internet service designed to make people’s lives more enjoyable and more productive, wherever they happen to be in our coverage area.”

WiMax is different from WiFi in that its range is no longer a few feet, but can carry over distances as long as 30 miles. Also compared to 3G, WiMax has Internet download speeds up to four times faster than those of 3G networks.

Clearwire will offers several plan options including $25 per month for home Internet service, $35 per month for mobile Internet access, or a combination package of home and mobile for $50 per month. Customers can also purchase a day pass for $10 or subscribe to the dual-mode 4G/3G plan that is available for $70 per month with a two-year service agreement. WiMax devices such as WiMax enabled laptops or USB modems can be obtained at Best Buy stores or at other authorized Clearwire retailers.… Read the rest

Airspan to Deploy WiMAX in Santa Cruz, La Paz and Cochabamba in Bolivia

on September 29, 2009  



bolivia

Cooperativa de Teléfonos Automáticos Santa Cruz De La Sierra Limitada, or “COTAS,” a Bolivian telecommunications provider, has selected Airspan Networks’ advanced WiMAX solutions for a next-generation broadband network deployment across major cities in Bolivia.

Airspan Networks officials said that, operating on the 3.5 GHz spectrum, the network will deliver broadband data and other high-end IP applications to consumers using the company’s advanced WiMAX solution incorporating the WiMAX Forum Certified MicroMAX & HiperMAX platforms.

Kurt Klein, planning and engineering manager of COTAS, said that Airspan’s equipment is enabling the company to reach a broader range of customers and to provide them with improved connectivity and applications.

“We are especially happy to have equipment that can overcome some of the rugged terrain challenges we face in Bolivia,” Klein said. “HiperMAX is a robust and reliable solution that can reach both our urban as well as our rural customers.”

Officials said that the 4G network will cover the regions of Santa Cruz, La Paz and Cochabamba with HiperMAX base stations, while the MicroMAX base stations will be used for another five cities: Sucre, Tarija, Trinidad, Oruro and Potosí.

Bolivia has one of the lowest regional broadband penetration rates, only approximately 10.4% of the 9.6 million people, leaving a huge demand amongst consumers for high-speed connectivity.

“Airspan is proud to have been selected by COTAS for this project and to emerge as the vendor of choice from a pool of fierce competition,” Amit Ancikovsky, president of sales and products, Airspan, said. “We look forward to working with COTAS on this network and to our continued partnership as their network needs continue to grow.”

“We are hopeful that by bridging the digital divide, we can help improve the quality of life and the overall economic situation in Bolivia,” Klein said.

… Read the rest

Telkom will deploy WiMax in Indonesia in Q1 2010

on September 28, 2009  



 

“And the winner is… -PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom).” According to TeleGeography, Indonesia’s largest telecoms company announced that it will deploy the country’s first WiMax networkin the first quarter of 2010. In an interview with the Jakarta Post, Telekom director Ermady Dahlan said that the company is finishing paperwork that will allow them to obtain the operational license from the Indonesian government. Spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Gatot Dewa Broto explained that the ministry requires Telekom to pass a series of feasibility tests, before it will issue them the license as planned by the end of October.

WiMAX is a 4G technology that provides wireless Internet transmission of data using high-throughput broadband connections over long distances without having to build costly infrastructure. With a coverage of some 30 miles in radius from each base station, wimax does not require a large number of transmission towers. Therefore, WiMax involves relatively low costs in investment compared to 3G technologies.

According to Jakarta Post, Telkom was one of eight companies to receive WiMAX broadband licences from the government in August this year. Minister of Information and Communication, Mohammad Nuh, said the eight winners of operating licences fulfilled the main criteria, including having ‘sufficient infrastructure’ and a minimum usage of 30 and 40 percent of local products. The full list of winners is PT Telkom, PT Indosat Mega Media, PT Internux, PT First Media, PT Jasnita Telekomindo, PT Berca Hardayaperkasa, PT Rahajasa Media Internet (also known as the Indonesian WiMAX Consortium), and a consortium comprising PT Comtronics Systems and PT Adiwarta Perdania. Even though all eight fulfill the requirements, Telekom will have the honor of being the first to launch a Fourth Generation network in the country.… Read the rest

Chicago to get WiMax by year’s end

on September 22, 2009  



chicago

Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp. will extend the long-awaited WiMax broadband service to Chicago by the end of the year. “We think this is drug-addicting kind of access,” Clearwire CEO Bill Morrow said in a Thursday interview with the Chicago Tribune. 4G wireless technology brings wireless Internet service that is faster, stronger and more reliable than that of 3G networks or Wi-Fi. In fact, Wimax technology runs three to four times faster than the current 3G network on mobile devices. Laptop and smart phone users will experience the same speeds they get through fixed broadband service. According to the Chicago Tribune, Sprint will sell separate WiMax services under its own name. Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics and Clearwire-owned stores will offer “Clear” service and “Clear” equipment by Christmas.

Clearwire and Sprint initially agreed in 2007 to jointly build a nationwide WiMax network, and Chicago was expected to get the service as early as 2008. The deal fell through at the end of 2007. The two companies revived negotiations in 2008 and merged their wireless broadband units into a new company that retained the Clearwire name. Further investors in the company include Comcast Corp. and Google Inc.… Read the rest

WiMAX Deployment in Africa

on September 22, 2009  



WiMAX Deployment in Africa

In the recent years, Africa has truly proved itself as one of the leading suppliers of the WiMAX industry. AccessKenya is one of the largest WiMAX networks in East Africa. They provide wireless broadband for residential use in the cities of Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya. MTN Uganda has made it their goal to provide countrywide WiMAX access in Uganda, and has already installed several operating networks.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), which regulates telecommunications in South Africa, issued four licenses for commercial WiMAX services to the Internet Service Providers iBurst, Sentech, Neotel, and Telkom. South Africa currently hosts a few scattered operational WiMAX networks, but with the issuance of these licenses, the country is expected see many more networks appear in the upcoming months. Delays in the award of licenses for providing WiMAX services and the limited roll-out of services that have been licensed has resulted in dampening of its potential impact. Only those companies that have already deployed WiMAX have appreciated its impact. These companies are all using Telkom’s scaled down version of wimax. According to studies conducted in 2008, 8% of corporations in South Africa have adopted WiMAX options as part of their connectivity mix in 2007 but they did not use wimax as a preferred form of connectivity and deployed it where no other options were available, such as in rural areas or areas with rough terrain.

In Angola, MSTelcom has deployed a WiMAX network to blanket over half of Luanda with broadband Internet service. In Nigeria, Galaxy Wireless Communications Limited has launched the country’s first Mobile broadband service based on the IEEE 802.16e standard. XS Broadband is also a major contributor to the installment of WiMAX in Nigeria and currently holds licenses for 24 of the 36 Nigerian states. The Middle East and Africa were the fastest growing regions for WiMAX in 2008.… Read the rest

Wimax Deployment in Asia

on September 22, 2009  



wimax-deployment-asia

Asia brings high hopes for the WiMAX Industry. Experts estimated that Asia held 80,000 WiMAX customers in 2006, and they predict that there will be a significant increase in the number of subscribers by the end of 2009. China Netcom has provided residential users in the Guangdong province of China with fixed Broadband Wireless Access (802.16-2004) sine 2006. They are currently one of the major suppliers of WiMAX technology in China and will prove to be a big player in China’s goal to reach over 3.8 million users by the end of 2009. 3 South Korean telecom industries have supplied a huge contribution to the development of Mobile WiMAX (802.16e), which they referred to as WiBro. Samsung has aided SK Telecom and SK in their monumental deployment of Wibro in the city of Seoul in South Korea. No WiMAX networks have been deployed in Japan as of February 2009. However, UQ Communications has given the Japan WiMAX industry reason to be optimistic. The company plans to release Wibro networks in the cities of Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kawasaki for a free 4-month trial in order to prove its worth to its potential subscribers. After the trial, residents will be asked to pay the equivalent of $50 USD a month in order to continue their services. In 2008, REDtone International established Malaysia’s first WiMAX service for enterprise use only. The company now services one of the many 802.16e networks in the country.

Before WiMAX, only about 4.9% of India had Internet access and less than 0.5% had broadband connections.4 In 2007, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) became the first Company to launch WiMax services in India. Nevertheless, the company expects to grow exponentially in the near future and has estimated that they will acquire seven to nine million subscribers by 2010. The government in India has even established a mandate to provide broadband access to all secondary schools, public healthcare centers, and rural areas by the end of 2009. All of these efforts will effectively increase India’s broadband penetration in the near and hopeful future.Today, the company is known as Tata Communications and holds the largest WiMAX market share in India. Maravedis predicted in April Wimax Subscribers in India will Exceed 13 Million by 2013. The big push will probably be seen post-spectrum auctions. According to this report about 10,000 BWA/WiMAX base station sectors have been deployed … Read the rest

Wimax Deployment in Europa

on September 22, 2009  



WiMAX Deployment in Europa

WiMAX networks have made their presence in Europe since as early as 2004. Norby Telecom and Wi-Manx were one of the first companies in Europe to deploy commercial WiMAX networks to cities and rural areas. Today, Norby Telecom has expanded their network to cover over half of Estonia, and Wi-Manx continues to offers home Broadband Wireless Access, Business Internet connectivity, Voice over Internet Protocol, Internet Telephony, and other various network solutions to the Isle of Man near the UK. A few years later, the technology spread to the UK : Freedom4 connected over 4,000 Wi-Fi hotspots around the UK and deployed a Mobile WiMAX Network (802.16e) in London. Additionally, the service provider Nomad Digital has established a WiMAX network alongside the London to Brighton railway line as a backhaul to enable passengers to access the Internet from Wi-Fi Access Points. In 2005, Iliad installed the first wireless broadband network in France. Any-Port has also made enormous headway in France by integrating an unlicensed WiMAX system to provide Internet connectivity to the waterways between France, Spain, and Italy.

Germany joined the WiMAX ranks in 2005 when Deutsche Breitband Dienste (DBD) set up WiMAX networks in large cities such as Munich. In 2006, DBD, along with Clearwire, Inquam, and Telco Arcor, acquired licensed broadband frequencies from the government. Now they provide services to several major cities and rural areas across Germany. The Internet Service Providers Euskaltel, Iberbanda, and Clearwire control the majority share of WiMAX networks in Spain. Euskaltel has established a large network in the Basque region, providing Broadband service to over 100 small cities. In 2006, Iberbanda bought out the WiMAX Company Telefónica and now has the largest number of customers in Spain. In 2007, Clearwire launched its first WiMAX system in Spain, which reached over 300,000 households.

Italy was one of the last European nations to join the WiMAX race. In 2008, the Italian Ministry of Defense auctioned off 35 licenses for WiMAX 3.5GHz frequencies. The main auction winners were Linkem S.p.A., who currently hosts a WiMAX Mobile Network (802.16e) in Naples, and NGI, who provides a fixed WiMAX network in Rome. Although Italy came into the race late, it plans to deploy seven more 802.16e networks in several regions in the upcoming months.

Around the same time, several WiMAX companies implemented Broadband Wireless Networks in Eastern Russia. In 2006, Airspan supplied … Read the rest

WiMAX Deployment in Australia

on September 22, 2009  



WiMAX Deployment in Oceania

Most of Australia’s current WiMAX networks are located in South East Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. The WiMAX providers Allegro Networks, Unwired, and Austar all hold licensed frequencies and have deployed WiMAX networks throughout the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, and Sydney. They also plan to install Mobile WiMAX networks in several locations once WiMAX Forum certified hardware becomes available. Digital River Networks has also initiated extensive WiMAX trials in the suburbs of Melbourne and owns several Wi-Fi networks in the Country, which they hope to convert to WiMAX networks before June 2009.… Read the rest

Wimax Deployment in South America

on September 22, 2009  



WiMAX Deployment in South America

Although South America does not have the most WiMAX systems, there are many notable countries whose WiMAX technology is among the top of its class. The Internet Service Providers TelMex, who has deployed a Mobile WiMAX network around the city Brasilia, and Neovia, who has set up a fixed WiMAX network in Sao Paulo, make up the majority of WiMAX networks in Brazil. TelMex has also established an extensive set of WiMAX networks in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. Colombia received its first WiMAX system in July of 2006 from the Internet Service Provider Orbitel. In addition to Orbitel, the main license holders in Colombia are Telecom and Avantel. In Paraguay, the company Tigo Banda Ancha offers a WiMAX plan for the equivalent of $41 USD in several cities. In Venezuela, Movilmax has established a commercial Mobile WiMAX network (802.16e) in Caracas using CPE modem and PCMCIA laptop cards.

Recent reports unveils that Latin America’s WiMAX market is to surpass US$1.04 Billion in revenues during 2009-2013 and that the WiMAX business model in Latin America is developing from being an alternative to wired broadband access into a means for strengthening operator offer through service bundling. In total, at 1Q2009 there are 26 operators offering wireless broadband services by means of various WiMAX technologies, or that have indicated their intention to migrate their networks to 802.16 technologies in the medium term.

Spectrum auction in Latin America will considerably boost development of broadband in the region and will contribute to the overall growth in broadband subscription penetration, fixed and 3G mobile combined, from 9% at year-end 2008 to 70% at year-end 2014. These wimax auctions, taking place  in Argentina, Brazil Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, are essential stepping stones for the further wimax network deployment. Regulators now look to accelerate the award of broadband spectrum to close the connectivity gap and inject additional competition into the market. According to those studies, the result will be an increase of Latin America’s broadband subscriber base from 48 million in 2008 to 426 million at year-end 2014 (44 %Annual growth).… Read the rest

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