4.3 WiMAX Development Prospect in Asia (Japan, India, South Korea, etc.)

Asia (Japan, India, South Korea, etc.)

In Asia, WiMAX is a very hot topic and it seems to be a good prospect in China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, etc. This part I will focus on Japan, India, South Korea and the situation of China and Taiwan will be given in the next section.

Actually, India and Japan will become the largest WiMAX market in the region according to a report from Spring board Research. The report The report forecasts Wimax service revenues in Asia Pacific to reach $5.5 billion and nearly 34 million users by 2012. The report, titled “Laying the Foundation: Wimax in Asia/Pacific 2008”, further estimated the number of Wimax subscribers to grow from 230,000 in 2007 to 33.9 million by 2012. Mobile Wimax services are estimated to garner a significant majority of revenues and subscribers compared to fixed Wimax services. India and Japan will be the largest markets for Wimax in the region, accounting for more than half of the market, followed by Pakistan and China. The next couple of years will be critical for Wimax growth in Asia Pacific, and during that time, we are expecting services to be available for end users in over 10 countries,” said Bryan Wang, Springboard research director for connectivity research. “The majority of Wimax subscribers will be from Korea, Pakistan, India, and Australia,” Wang added.

Cantab Wireless also said in its report, WiMAX technology may not be successful in mature market of developed countries, but in developing countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China, WiMAX will be a strong success. Especially in Inida or Parkistan, there are not other large mobile broadband service as the competitor so it gives WiMAX enough space to grow up! They even forecase that in 2013, WiMAX will become the main wireless access service in India. Even in middle East, WiMAX also will be with high development prospect which is the similar situation like south america.

In South Korea, WiBro already becoming the main service in their market. Actually, as we know, WiBro is based on 802.16e-2005 mobile WiMAX, it is just a different name of WiMAX. The country's WiBro service is preparing for a boost in performance later this year that is expected to keep the service at the leading edge of mobile broadband. Korea's WiBro service is the only market to have WiMAX Forum Certified products based on 802.16e-2005 Wave 1 requirements. And they are developing Wave 2 by Korea Telecom (KT) and the Wave 2 network is expected to start commercial operation during July while SK Telecom is targeting September. Current WiBro users should continue to receive the same services without interruption, though a next-generation WiBro device would be necessary to obtain improved network performance. So in South Korea, they have correspondingly mature market and service comparing to other country. And WiBro will continue its development and boost in South Korea in long time.

Therefore, we can know that many asian countries are considering WiMAX as their primary future in wireless access service and technology. Of course this will accelerate the pace of WiMAX in Asia even around the world.