This weekend Daryl Schoolar, a Senior Analyst with the market research firm In-Stat who has been covering all topics about broadband since 2000, wrote an interesting article on GiGaom unleashing WiMax’s business perspective in the upcoming months and years, also disputing Nokia’s recent comparison of WiMax with Betamax.
“…I believe there is a market for WiMAX. WiMAX’s problem comes from that fact when people talk about it, they do so within the context of the cellular technologies like LTE — but WiMAX is suited to a different use case altogether. Unlike cellular technologies that offer true mobility, WiMAX will offer what I call “nomadicity” — mobility a person can use while in a city but not when traveling between two metro areas. I conducted surveys at In-Stat in 2007 and 2008 to measure consumer interest in different wireless business models. The business models were based on laptop data usage, and described service offerings from mobile operators, hotspot providers, and Sprint/Clearwire’s WiMAX service plans. In both studies, consumers responded more favorably to the business model I described for WiMAX than those for cellular or Wi-Fi. …“
“ Coverage everywhere may be ideal, but consumers really want coverage just where they are. For most consumers, this location is their home metro area. The business model coverage description of WiMAX was limited to coverage in consumers’ home metro area, and a third of all U.S. cities. This is what I call “nomadicity” vs. “full mobility,” as is found with cellular [...] More than 80 percent of consumers said they had some level of interest in a plan that would provide broadband service both at home and on-the-go. Another 40 percent said they would switch from their current fixed broadband provider for one that could give them home and on-the-go service. Currently, Clearwire provides this in its Portland market.”
“I believe there is a business case for WiMAX [...] Whether or not Clearwire survives, I believe its emphasis on nomadicity, with a service that mixes both fixed and mobile broadband, will be successfully used by other WiMAX service providers.”
Read full article on GiGaom : WiMAX Can Win — If It’s Not Playing Against Cellular
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