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Nationwide WiMax in next two years?
Intel: And will live happily with 3G…

By David Meyer

Published: Friday 09 May 2008

There will be WiMax coverage across the UK within the next two years, the managing director of Intel Capital EMEA has claimed.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion yesterday, Ashish Patel said the long-range wireless technology would find an enthusiastic audience among the users of mini-notebooks and other portable web-surfing devices. WiMax is currently only available in very limited deployments in the UK and only in its "fixed" variant, with the prospects for "mobile WiMax" - the type needed for portable devices - depending on upcoming spectrum auctions.

Wireless from A to Z

Click on the links below to find out more…

A is for Antivirus
B is for Bluetooth
C is for The Cloud
D is for dotMobi
E is for Email
F is for FMC
G is for GPS
H is for HSDPA
I is for i-mode
J is for Japan Air
K is for Korea
L is for LBS
M is for M2M
N is for NFC
O is for Operating systems
P is for Pubs
Q is for QoS
R is for Roaming
S is for Satellite
T is for TV
U is for UMTS
V is for Virgin
W is for WiMax
X is for XDA
Y is for Yucca
Z is for Zigbee

Intel, the most prominent backer of WiMax, is planning to integrate the technology into its upcoming Centrino 2 platform by the end of this year, and is pumping money into companies all along the value chain, from component manufacturers to operators.

On Wednesday, a joint venture in the US was announced, involving Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, with $1bn in funding from Intel and similarly large amounts from other players like Comcast, Google and Time Warner. This is the most significant WiMax-related deal to be struck in the developed world, as the technology has thus far proved most useful in countries where wired infrastructure is scarce, making it sensible and cost-efficient to skip straight to a high-bandwidth, wireless alternative like WiMax.

The Western European market will prove particularly tricky for WiMax because - unlike the US - the market is already full of entrenched 3G users. However, according to Patel, WiMax is not going to be a "competitor to 3G or DSL", rather it will form a new market and all the technologies can happily co-exist.

On the subject of the sudden increase in 3G dongle usage in the UK, Patel said the trend "validates the market for mobile data" but said he was "convinced that, at some point, 3G will not be able to cope from a backhaul [and general traffic-management] perspective".

He said: "[3G operators] will need huge levels of new base stations or they will have to partner with WiMax and offer 3G solutions for specific [voice-related applications]." The former approach is unlikely to happen, as European operators have already stated they want to put up far fewer new base stations. The long-term evolution of 3G, Patel said, was "at least two to three years out before it can happen", and would not be significantly cheaper than investment in WiMax because it would also require operators to "rip out and replace their entire 3G networks".

Patel said: "WiMax will cover the UK nationally in the next 18 to 24 months."

Another hurdle for mobile WiMax is spectrum allocation in the 2.5GHz band, something that will become possible through an Ofcom auction later this year. Patel said he was confident that spectrum would be obtained for the WiMax industry but "not totally confident yet about the quantity of spectrum [that will be obtained]".