14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to the future of wireless networks, there are two technologies that pop up, namely WiMAX and LTE. The latter seems to have been adopted by a wide range of telecommunications companies around the world, and will start being deployed next year, yet the former sees only few fans at the moment, although the first networks based on it have already been launched commercially.
Even so, it seems that WiMAX still has something to prove to the world, as it is reportedly the technology that saw the highest growth rate during the second quarter of the ongoing year, at least this is what ABI Research states. “WiMAX achieved a whopping 74% growth compared to the previous quarter,” says Jake Saunders, vice-president for forecasting at ABI Research. “The installed base of WiMAX stood at a little over three million subscriptions, but it is a sign that the battle for the 4G market is not an automatic victory for LTE.”
The statistics published by ABI Research include both 802.16d and 802.16e, and cover the entire base of WiMAX subscribers. One thing that should be mentioned here is that a variety of 802.16d networks are expected to be transformed into 802.16e. In addition to showing the growth WiMAX has registered, ABI Research also points towards the fact that mobile broadband subscriptions have started to take off, and that it expects for a number of around 240 million subscribers to be registered before this year's end. According to the firm, their number should surpass 1.2 billion by 2014.
Compared to WiMAX, LTE will only become commercially available next year, with the first subscriptions expected to surface either in the second or in the third quarter of the year. One of the carriers that planned to launch LTE commercially in 2009 is NTT DOCOMO, yet the company had to delay the roll-out to 2010. Verizon Wireless is another operator that should announce the commercial debut of its LTE network next year.
Both WiMAX and LTE are expected to become successful in the future, even more than the currently available 3G technologies. Even so, it should be noted that HSPA has seen 160 million subscriptions during the quarter, while approximately 375 million people chose EDGE in the three-month period.