Mobile WiMAX chipset shipments surge but the numbers don't look good

Number of LTE chipsets booming but face problems

Despite shipments of mobile WiMAX chipsets booming last year, the overall picture for the technology does not look good as LTE catches up.
Mobile WiMax chipset shipments reached just 5 million last year, up from 1.3 million in 2008, according to the first issue of the 4Ggear Quarterly Report from Maravedis.This is not enough to boost the market, and while chip shipments grew, the infrastructure was flat, indicating limited roll out.

"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," he continued.

"Surprisingly, there are already many players in the LTE base-band chipset landscape. However early LTE chipset suppliers may not be the long term winners in the dual-mode 3G/4G chipset market," said Pascal Deriot, co-author of the report and 4Ggear team leader. "While LTE incumbent providers focus on sampling dual-mode chipsets, new entrants position themselves as technology drivers, delivering early LTE-only solutions."

 

Maravedis believes that the development of the LTE modem itself is not the most complex aspect of the global LTE picture. "Interoperability, seamless hand over, architecture expertise and management of the different bands across the world may be the most challenging obstacles facing LTE chipset suppliers," added Deriot.
 
The report confirms that both WiMAX and LTE are converging upon 4G service capabilities. LTE's primary market, incumbent 3G operators, will be unlikely to significantly deploy LTE sooner than early 2012.

• 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.
• LTE infrastructure benefits from WiMAX technology and product development, speeding its time-to-market and allowing for a cleaner interoperability and conversion between and from WiMAX to LTE.
• 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).

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• Beceem's BCS500 4G modem splices WiMAX and LTE into one chip, sampling later this year (engadget.com)
• Beceem Putting WiMax and and LTE On Same Super 4G Chip [4G] (gizmodo.com)
• LTE and WiMAX (teabreak.pk)
• Intel sees 2012 deployment for mobile WiMax Release 2 (infoworld.com)
• Cisco quits WiMax radio business (computerworld.com)
• Verizon 4G Field Trials Hitting 40 to 50 Megabits Per Second (seekingalpha.com)
• The state of 4G in 2010 (computerworld.com)