BWA/WiMAX Reaches 4 Million Subscribers Worldwide

BWA/WiMAX managed to top 4 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter of this year, a recent report from analyst firm Maravedis shows. A number of around 560,000 BWA/WiMAX subscribers were added in Q2, the report says, also unveiling that subscriber growth rate in the time frame was 16.5 percent higher than in the first quarter, and 74 percent higher than in the second quarter of last year.

“Global service revenue growth is going up as WiMAX operators experience increase in subscriber growth, and the gradual appreciation of most currencies against the US$,” noted Maravedis CEO and Founder Adlane Fellah. Robert Syputa, Maravedis senior analyst and partner, added: “The higher demands imposed by open Internet access on web-phones and laptops pushes incumbent operators to LTE and Greenfield operators to more rapid returns for WiMAX deployments. With additional spectrum hard to come by, this is likely to pull in the time frame for conversions of existing spectrum. Operator's thinking shows early signs of shifting.”

The report from Maravedis also shows that Clearwire USA is the leading company on the BWA/WIMAX operator list, at least when it comes to the number of subscribers it accounts for. At the same time, Maravedis' leading 4GCounts subscription service also shows that 45 new devices received WiMAX Forum certification in the June-September time frame, 18 of which were notebooks, 4 were cards, 12 USB dongles, and 3 chipsets, as well as other devices.

Among the other findings of the report we can count:
- Q2 2009 recorded WiMAX ARPU was US$39.5 and US$121.8 for residential and business segments respectively, compared to US$36.7 and US$111.74 for the same segments in Q1 2009.
- Out of all BWA/WiMAX CPEs deployed as of Q2 2009, 4GCounts showed 25% were 802.16-2004, 23% were 802.16e-2005, and 52% were vendor proprietary.
- Mobile traffic is experiencing extraordinary growth worldwide. Global mobile data traffic in Q2 2009 had a monthly increase of 30% with respect to the previous quarter.
- Of the top 35 mobile operators committed to LTE tracked by 4GCounts as of Q2 2009, 37% are planning a commercial rollout in 2010, 29% in 2011, 25% in 2012, and 9% have yet to be confirmed.

More details, as well as the report, can be found on the Canadian analyst firm's website.