4.1 WiMAX Development Prospect in Europe

As mentioned in previous section, a lot of countries was or is starting to apply WiMAX standard as the main wireless fixed or portable communication access technology. But some discommenders still believe WiMAX is only the transition technology and will be replaced by other technologies which seem more promising. Focus on this problem, I would like to give the development prospect of different area including Europe, America and Asia.

EUROPE

In some western European countries, HSPA is considered as the continuing technology of UMTS naturally and the preference of mobile broadband technology due to it’s not necessary to open new frequency bands. Also, many people are thinking that WiMAX is impossible to occupy a large market in Europe which is the main area using GSM. However, it’s not neglectable that WiMAX already spread through Europe and more and more operators are interested in WiMAX because its technological benefits. The major problem may be the historical reason so that operators could not only concentrate on WiMAX setup. One prediction is that the portable handset which is compatible to WiMAX and HSDPA will be put on the market, and this may become the milestone of WiMAX. Actually, Juniper Research is very confident for the development in Europe of WiMAX because it has been accepted as IMT2000 by ITU (International Telecommunication Union).

The fact is that WiMAX start to preparing for the thriving even though 3G and HSDPA go ahead than WIMAX. Especially after the release of IEEE 802.16e, WiMAX seems already well-prepared for the high development around Europe. Particularly in some regions of Germany, the ground layer establishment for business services almost finished and it started to offer services for individual users from January 2008. VSE NET GmbH, a regional telecommunication system company in Saarland state, southeastern of Germany, started the first mobile-WiMAX service in Europe from January 2008 as well. This company has cooperation with Alcatel-Lucent on the issue of WiMAX and planed to setting mobile base station setup which will be used to high-speed network, IP or other communication service based on WiMAX. Moreover, they use 3.5GHz bands and this frequency band is different from which was using in South Korea, US, and Japan, at 2.3-2.6GHz. Office of Communication (Ofcom) announced that UK Broadband was permitted to use frequency bands 3.5GHz to mobile service. That means they were possible to use the handsets or equipments which are compatible to the 802.16e. British Telecom is planning to install six WiMAX antennas and associated equipment on the tallest building in Newcastle on Tyne and some other locations. Altitude Telecom in France deployed WiMAX licensed 3.5GHz and apply products "4Motion" with Alvarion. In the Netherlands, Worldmax announced WiMAX network was used commercially in Amsterdam this June. The frequency band is 3.5GHz instead of 2.6GHz band. Worldmax is an investment corporation founded by Intel and an operator. Worldmax is intending to compete against KPN, Vodafone and T-Mobile in this area. They estimate that mobile WiMAX laptop can access internet without bit limit which may cost 20 EUR per month. Normally, 3.5GHz is the wireless access band while 2.6GHz is considered as mobile communication band. This announcement is tremendously positive for the market development of WiMAX in the Netherlands and Europe.

On the contrary, the vendue of 2.6GHz band in UK has been delayed (the original schedule is August 2008) by related department due to the legal challenges of T-Mobile and O2. As we know, the market of UK is a key step for the process of WiMAX in Europe. Therefore, a lot of technical experts think that WiMAX will have long way to follow in Europe.

For me, despite both good news and bad news happened, I still believe WiMAX will have good prospect in Europe. The positive side are those after a few years’ exploration, WiMAX keep it on 3.5GHz as wireless access; WiMAX became one of the legal technologies in Third Generation. Negatively, some companies do not have income directly to deploy WiMAX which means there is not enough cash flow to support the WiMAX development so that many companies are care about deploying WiMAX. In total, the progress in Europe will be an important step for the development of WiMAX all around the world. And this may depend on the situation eventually in some developed countries such as Germany, UK, etc.