BWA/WiMAX Worldwide Subscriber Base Reaches 1.73 Million

According to the latest edition of the Quarterly Report from Maravedis, the global BWA/WiMAX subscriber base increased by 350,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, reaching a total of 1,728,000 subscribers.

"Even with an increase of more than 20% in WiMAX subscribers in Q4 2007, operators are still waiting for the tipping point that will lead to acceleration of WiMAX adoption and deployments," said Adlane Fellah, CEO and founder of Maravedis. "The key factors mainly centre on; certification of mobile WiMAX equipment, a reduction in CPE pricing and the emergence of a device ecosystem."

"Many operators are holding back their network expansion pending the mobile WiMAX 802.16e equipment certification, which was postponed to the second half of 2008." added Cintia Garza, co-author of the Quarterly Report.

"We are already seeing these tipping points in India, Pakistan, Africa, and we expect other emerging, heavily populated regions to be spurred by lower device pricing, which in turn will drive equipment volume ramp-up during 2009-2010", said Robert Syputa, Maravedis Partner and Senior Analyst.

Key findings:

Over 800,000 subscribers were using WiMAX Forum Certified technology at year-end 2007

• Out of all CPEs deployed, 29% were based on 802.16-2004, 11.7% were based on 802.16-2005, 55% were based on proprietary technologies, and 3.8% remained undisclosed.
• The Middle East and Africa region has the highest residential ARPU at US$50.04, while offering significantly lower speeds than other regions.
• The average number of subscribers per operator was 12,098 for Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) and 5,407 for Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs) in Q4 2007.
• WiMAX service revenues equated to US$1 billion in 2007, with recorded Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of US$46.30 for residential and US$144.09 for business subscribers.

Posted to the site on 26th March 2008