LEDBURY, United Kingdom-A new study by BWCS and Senza-Fili Consulting predicts the U.S. market for broadband wireless access services based on technologies such as WiMAX will be worth $3.7 billion by 2009, with momentum picking up in the market around 2007.
The study, “Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 802.20: The Disruptive Potential of Wireless Broadband,” estimates that fixed wireless services will account for 3.6 percent of all broadband connections in the United States during the same timeframe. WiMAX, according to the report’s author, is set to dominate the market.
“Over the last few months we have seen a growing number of vendors and service providers throwing their weight behind WiMAX as the leading standard for broadband wireless access,” said Monica Paolini, the author of the report. “Navini’s decision to join the WiMAX Forum after being a long-time supporter of the rival 802.20 standard confirms the growing industry support for WiMAX.”
According to Paolini, BWA needs a standards-based approach to reach mass-market acceptance.
“Until now BWA has failed to achieve widespread adoption due to a lack of convergence of vendors toward a single standard,” she said. “As we have seen with Wi-Fi, standards help to drive down hardware costs and promote interoperability among manufacturers.”
