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Wednesday 3 December 2008
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WiMAX poised for global domination
Thursday 22 June 2006
WiMAX is threatening to replace GSM and even W-CDMA as the most interesting wireless comms technology for semiconductor companies.
The importance of the wireless broadband access technology to chip suppliers is increasing as new GSM mobile phone deployments start to decline and W-CDMA shows only steady a roll-out, according to speakers at the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium in San Francisco last week.
“Everyone wants to talk about WiMAX.” said James Norling, marketing director RF division, Freescale Semiconductor.
According to Norling when Freescale talked to its main customers about WiMAX six to nine months ago only 20 per cent wanted to hear what the firm had to say. “Now 90 per cent want to do something with WiMAX,” said Norling.
Interest in WiMAX may be growing, but it is clearly not the only wireless application being targeted by chip suppliers. “GSM is certainly not dead but there is a steep reduction. W-CDMA continues to roll-out. Although it’s not as fast as some forecast, it is consistent,” said Norling.
Yet, there is a belief that WiMAX has the potential to match even these global wireless technologies in terms of market size.
Inevitably, support for WiMAX came from Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum, who believes the market for broadband wireless “is amazing and we’re barely scratching the surface”.
According to Resnick, a significant factor which WiMAX has in its favour is that the intellectual property for the technology is spread around between various companies, unlike for CDMA. “If one company gets all the intellectual property rights it creates a burden on industry,” he said.
But Resnick concedes that there is resistance to the technology from some areas of the wireless industry. “3G has hardly taken off today. Some players will try to slow down the take-up of WiMAX,” said Resnick. “I’m pushing hard for convergence and not everyone wants that. But if they don’t do it [converge], then some companies are going to run out of steam.”
The importance of the wireless broadband access technology to chip suppliers is increasing as new GSM mobile phone deployments start to decline and W-CDMA shows only steady a roll-out, according to speakers at the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium in San Francisco last week.
“Everyone wants to talk about WiMAX.” said James Norling, marketing director RF division, Freescale Semiconductor.
According to Norling when Freescale talked to its main customers about WiMAX six to nine months ago only 20 per cent wanted to hear what the firm had to say. “Now 90 per cent want to do something with WiMAX,” said Norling.
Interest in WiMAX may be growing, but it is clearly not the only wireless application being targeted by chip suppliers. “GSM is certainly not dead but there is a steep reduction. W-CDMA continues to roll-out. Although it’s not as fast as some forecast, it is consistent,” said Norling.
Yet, there is a belief that WiMAX has the potential to match even these global wireless technologies in terms of market size.
Inevitably, support for WiMAX came from Ron Resnick, president of the WiMAX Forum, who believes the market for broadband wireless “is amazing and we’re barely scratching the surface”.
According to Resnick, a significant factor which WiMAX has in its favour is that the intellectual property for the technology is spread around between various companies, unlike for CDMA. “If one company gets all the intellectual property rights it creates a burden on industry,” he said.
But Resnick concedes that there is resistance to the technology from some areas of the wireless industry. “3G has hardly taken off today. Some players will try to slow down the take-up of WiMAX,” said Resnick. “I’m pushing hard for convergence and not everyone wants that. But if they don’t do it [converge], then some companies are going to run out of steam.”
See also: Electronics Weekly's roundup of content related to WiMax
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