WiMAX deployments across the globe are seen on a rise especially on the backdrop of a ever growing demand from the consumers for mobile broadband services. And interestingly incumbent operators are also seen adopting the technology as opposed to the general perception that WiMAX deployments are mainly confined to Greenfield operators.

With the year about to end, the observations show that there have been 95 WiMAX deployments by 2G operators. The total WiMAX deployments number 519 with 112 added in 2009 alone.

The year 2009 also saw 86 products receiving the WiMAX Forum certification indicating that the spread of the WiMAX ecosystem.

FDD WiMAX is now a part of the IMT-2000 family of standards. More than 50 companies have resolved to endorse IEEE 802.16m IMT Advanced standard in their roadmap for future. Service providers and vendors have already committed to trial WIMAX Release 2 to be based on IEEE 802.16m standard. The names include leading players from the industry such as Alvarion, Beceem, Cisco, Clearwire, Huawei, Intel, KT, Motorola, Samsung, Sequans, UQC, Yota and ZTE.

For the future outlook, the WiMAX Forum says that in 2010 it will finalize its WiMAX Release 2 specification in parallel with IEEE 802.16m and IMT-Advanced, ensuring that WiMAX Release 2 networks and devices will remain backward compatible with legacy WiMAX Release 1 based on IEEE 802.16e. 

Other issues on agenda for the new year include an updated WiMAX Forum subscriber and POPs forecast in early 2010, certification of Mobile WiMAX 2.3 GHz products,     launch of the Open Retail Certification Program, completion of the WiMAX Forum Release 2 specs based on the new IEEE standard 802.16m, commercialization and deployment of the WiMAX Forum global roaming program, three WiMAX Forum Congress Series Events, including Asia Congress in April, Global Congress in June and Americas Congress in December 2010

“Despite the global economy, WiMAX is going strong in 2009,” says Ron Resnick, president and chairman of the WiMAX Forum. “The WiMAX Forum membership has continued to bring WiMAX to new markets, certify devices and keep the spirit of delivering mobile Internet services to people throughout the world. We expect 2010 to bring new innovations to the WiMAX ecosystem with completion of the IEEE 802.16m standard, commercialization of the global roaming program and new WiMAX Forum programs to help bring certified devices to retail channels faster.”

Performance of service providers in 2009

On the subscriber base front, the technology is witnessing a slow but steady progress. Russian WiMAX operator, Yota reached 250,000 subscribers with 2,300 subscribers added daily and claims to have reached the break even point. WiMAX leader Clearwire reached 555,000 subscribers while Malaysia’s Packet One Networks managed to reach 130,000 subscribers within a year of launch.

Vendor Performance:

Vendors too benefited from the demand for WiMAX network gear. Motorola claims it has shipped its 10,000 WiMAX Access Point and a million WiMAX CPEs.  Huawei says its revenues from WiMAX business unit for 2009 will follow the trend in 2008 where it posted 200% rise in revenues.

Alvarion till date has achieved 260 commercial deployments in over 100 countries while chip maker Intel launched embedded Wi-Fi-WiMAX minicard solution in US, Russia and Japan.

“In the tough economic climate of 2009, WiMAX continued to make significant strides,” comments Daryl Schoolar, principal analyst, wireless infrastructure at Current Analysis.  “Operators such as Packet One, Yota, and Clearwire continued to expand their network footprints.  Device form factors continued to improve, with more functionality and eye-pleasing packaging.  I expect in 2010 not only will network deployment stories turn into subscriber stories, but we will see true commercial WiMAX roaming between operators supported by multi-band devices.”