14 DAY TRIAL // WiMAX, the 4G technology that is already being deployed by various carriers around the world, is expected to live on the market for the following few years next to LTE, which should become the dominant 4G standard, and the growth registered in mobile WiMAX chipset shipments in 2009 seems to confirm this state of facts. According to a recent report from Maravedis, the shipments of mobile WiMAX chipsets topped 5 million during the last year, an impressive increase when compared to the 1.3 million chipsets shipped in 2008.
“However, despite the surge of mobile WiMAX device and chipset shipments, notably in Q4 09, the total WiMAX equipment market remained flat last year at US$1.36 billion,” said Maravedis Research Director Adlane Fellah. “The overall picture is mixed. Shipments of base stations decreased in 2009 and were impacted more deeply by the economic downturn, whereas device shipments, especially mobile WiMAX devices, grew at a rate of 147% Year-over-Year compared to 2008, correlating to the addition of a 3.5 million WIMAX subscribers during the year.”
According to Pascal Deriot, co-author of the report and 4Ggear team leader, a wide range of companies already showed interest in the LTE base-band chipset landscape, yet they are not expected to prove successful for a long period of time in the dual-mode 3G/4G chipset market. “While LTE incumbent providers focus on sampling dual-mode chipsets, new entrants position themselves as technology drivers, delivering early LTE-only solutions,” Deriot stated.
Maravedis also mentions that the development of LTE solutions in not all when it comes to the entire LTE area. Other aspects also need be taken into consideration, including interoperability, seamless hand over, architecture expertise and more, and the firm considers these are important obstacles that LTE chipset suppliers will face. Moreover, the report also shows that both WiMAX and LTE will go head to head on the market over the following several years.
Other highlights from the report include: - The total combined WiMAX market size in 2009 was US$1.36 billion compared to US$1.34 billion in 2008. - Indoor modems represented 48% of WiMAX units shipped in 2009 as, by USB dongles and PC cards at 43%. - Beceem, Sequans and GCT account for almost 90% of the total mobile WiMAX chipset market. - On the WiMAX chipset front, Maravedis has observed a shift to the LTE technology; Beceem, Sequans, Altair, Comsys and Wavesat have announced LTE chipset. Some of them have been sampled (Altair, Comsys, and Wavesat) others will follow in Q210 (Sequans) and Q410 (Beceem).