WiMAX Discovers a Strategy to Achieve Critical Mass
Over the last two years, it has been in doubt whether Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) will be able to live up to the “Worldwide” part of its name. With the exception of Clearwire and its partnership with Sprint in the United States, no other major Tier-1 operator in a top developed market has adopted WiMAX as its 4G technology of choice. WiMax’s two-year head start on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology seemingly has been squandered by delays in certification, deployment and market ennui. Furthermore, recent developments such as the writing down of WiMAX investments as well as the exit of certain key players further conspired to fuel this doubt into a near certainty—almost.
While it’s true that the ideal vision for WiMAX as the technology successor to the billion-plus device market served by 2G and 3G networks will not come to pass, iSuppli Corp. posits that the fulfillment of that vision was not necessarily the only path by which WiMAX could achieve worldwide relevance.
It might have been the most glamorous path that offered the shortest time to adoption and largest market opportunities—but it is certainly not the only path. Indeed, through a series of innovative steps by the WiMAX ecosystem, the nucleus of a strategy has emerged that is allowing WiMAX to achieve critical mass—albeit one small market at a time.
Chicken and Egg Dilemma
One of the most basic obstacles that the adoption of any new access technology faces is the proverbial “chicken and egg” dilemma. When applied to new access technologies such as WiMAX, in order to be successfully adopted, a critical mass is required to be achieved in all nodes of the ecosystem from the chipset semiconductor base, to infrastructure equipment deployment, to subscriber equipment availability. The crux of the dilemma is that chipset suppliers require infrastructure and subscriber equipment manufacturers to consume demand while both infrastructure and subscriber equipment are useless without the other—thus creating an impasse as to which node will make the first, riskiest investment.
At the heart of this strategy aimed at overcoming this dilemma are the following core principles that the WiMAX ecosystem is employing.
* Convert existing, pre-WiMAX, revenue-generating proprietary networks.
* Develop and foster “green” field deployments by new operators as well as enabling last mile/ complementary deployments by existing wireline service providers.
* Leverage fixed network deployments to bootstrap mobile services for WiMAX-based operators to compete against incumbent mobile network operators.
* Optimize SKU efficiency.
While it’s true that the ideal vision for WiMAX as the technology successor to the billion-plus device market served by 2G and 3G networks will not come to pass, iSuppli Corp. posits that the fulfillment of that vision was not necessarily the only path by which WiMAX could achieve worldwide relevance.
It might have been the most glamorous path that offered the shortest time to adoption and largest market opportunities—but it is certainly not the only path. Indeed, through a series of innovative steps by the WiMAX ecosystem, the nucleus of a strategy has emerged that is allowing WiMAX to achieve critical mass—albeit one small market at a time.
Chicken and Egg Dilemma
One of the most basic obstacles that the adoption of any new access technology faces is the proverbial “chicken and egg” dilemma. When applied to new access technologies such as WiMAX, in order to be successfully adopted, a critical mass is required to be achieved in all nodes of the ecosystem from the chipset semiconductor base, to infrastructure equipment deployment, to subscriber equipment availability. The crux of the dilemma is that chipset suppliers require infrastructure and subscriber equipment manufacturers to consume demand while both infrastructure and subscriber equipment are useless without the other—thus creating an impasse as to which node will make the first, riskiest investment.
At the heart of this strategy aimed at overcoming this dilemma are the following core principles that the WiMAX ecosystem is employing.
* Convert existing, pre-WiMAX, revenue-generating proprietary networks.
* Develop and foster “green” field deployments by new operators as well as enabling last mile/ complementary deployments by existing wireline service providers.
* Leverage fixed network deployments to bootstrap mobile services for WiMAX-based operators to compete against incumbent mobile network operators.
* Optimize SKU efficiency.
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