Wimax optimism - and skepticism - still strong at BBWF

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Wimax proponents made their case for future survival Tuesday at the Broadband World Forum Asia, arguing that there's plenty of room for one more wireless broadband technology - especially one without the legacy baggage of LTE.

According to a panel of Wimax players, Wimax has the support and the momentum to flourish, as well as the technological chops to serve the growing demand for high-speed data.

Asha Hemrajani, head of strategy and business development at Nokia Siemens Networks, said that Wimax had a "rosy future", citing trends like the rise of P2P and video and the growing number of Wimax licenses already issued in the 2.3-2.5 GHz and 3.5GHz bands.

"By February 2008, 606 such licenses had been issued worldwide, and Wimax is the only technology that can effectively serve those bands," she said.

Hemrajani also noted that Wimax has plenty of vendor support, and has a clear evolutionary roadmap to next-gen 802.16m that will see support added for multicast, LBS, and 3G/Wi-Fi handoff.

Tamio Saito, deputy GM of NGW Project at Fujitsu Laboratories, added that Wimax is also well suited to support a number of specialized services, from straight rural coverage in unserved areas to apps in emergency medical care and disaster relief communications.

Kevin Suitor, marketing and business development VP of Redline Communications, said that emerging markets are a prime opportunity for Wimax, noting that 160 trials and deployments had already happened in such markets -- 50 of which are now commercial.

Suitor said that T1/E1 services, hotspot/base station backhaul and wireless DSL were the immediate business opportunities for Wimax, and that operators could add nomadic and fully mobile capabilities later.

Not everyone is sold on the Wimax case, however. Hans Höglund, director of government and industry relations at Ericsson -- which does not sell Wimax technology -- said from the floor during the post-panel Q&A that while he agreed that broadband demand is rising, the demand could be met with HSPA and LTE, along with new spectrum allocations, rather than deploying an all new technology like Wimax.

"Do we really need new technology, or do we just need more spectrum‾" he asked the panel.

NSN's Hemrajani responded that Wimax had the attraction of a flat-IP architecture that doesn't have to support legacy circuit-switched 2G/3G.

Redline's Suitor added that frequency bands suitable for Wimax might not be suitable for 3G operators. "Bands that might be just table scraps to the 3GPP could be more useful to Wimax operators that could get a better return on it," he said.

Suitor also pointed out that the choice to deploy Wimax depends on the operator's goals, target market and service plan, and there are many cases where Wimax makes economic sense.

"If you're looking at high-volume, high-capacity data that works out to 2 GB per user per month, Wimax wins every time," he said.