WiMAX growth in the US lags, worldwide growth explodes

By on Feb 17, 2010 at 11:37 AM
General February 17, 2010

wimax-map-worldwide

WiMAX is slowly and steadily expanding in the U.S. through the efforts of Clearwire, the primary provider of WiMAX stateside. Globally, WiMAX is on a different track, exhibiting explosive growth with Asia Pacific and Europe leading the pack. The numbers, compiled by the WiMAX Forum, are revealing:

  • Asia Pacific: 237 million people covered by 100 network deployments
  • Europe: 115 million people covered by 153 network deployments
  • Central/Latin America: 113 million people covered 109 network deployments
  • Africa/Middle East: 108 million people covered by 142 network deployments
  • North America: 47 million people covered by 51 network deployments

Though Clearwire is currently behind the curve globally, it has set a lofty goal of blanketing 120 million people by the end of  2010. If achieved, Clearwire will be sitting pretty on top of a large potential user base while its competition, namely Verizon Wireless, is only beginning to roll out LTE commercially on a small scale. Look for things to get interesting in 2011 and beyond when the two 4G technologies begin competing head to head on a more level basis.

Read

Tags:
, , , ,
92 Comments

Related Articles

  • Tyson

    Wow we are behind Africa…. Really Africa

  • Tazs

    unfortunately we are way behind.. we got one of them form the village to run America .
    I do understand his power as a neighbor organizer but it was a neighbor hood of huts..

    • BigBoy

      This isn’t Fox News. Ass.

  • Stone

    is this the real wimax map? i think i see wimax coverage in Afghan and Iraq

  • T

    AT&T’s 4G LTE will shit down the necks of all the verizon fanboys period, the end. Just like the evolution of 3g, verizon was paying everybody to write in their blogs and such too say their 3g was faster than AT&T instead of fixing what was and is truely wrong = CDMA. Until verizon gets rid of the ancient technology they will continue to be on the path of failure. Hell AT&T’s 3gpp is already faster than verizon ever will be, come on guys do your homework!

    • T

      Jeff, does your mom know you were up after 10 on a school night? AT&Ts 3G is faster because they switched to W-CDMA. GSM 3G is called EDGE… and it’s now considered “2.5G.” Come on Jeff, go do your real homework instead of sneaking out to the family computer after bedtime!

    • iPaladin

      Actually, I’m betting the opposite happens… VZW deploys LTE at enough of a speed that it just makes AT&T look even more foolish at their own game.

      Do the words “beaten down at your own game” mean anything to you? Better get used to it AT&T. Even if you deploy more towers for LTE than Verizon does, AT&T will still be in trouble because they won’t have nearly the 4G spectrum that VZ does.

    • RM

      Verizon chose LTE for their 4G standard.

      What the hell are you talking about?

      • T

        Jeff doesn’t know what he’s talking about… it’s why after he gets shit on by everyone else for being stupid, he tries to take other peoples names to get his point across. He’s also under the false assumption that WCDMA and HSPA are upgradeable to LTE… nevermind the fact they are completely different technologies requiring all new hardware on the towers.

      • noobs4u

        they ARE now easily upgradable to LTE after there deal with erricson, so everything there putting up now is LTE, ATT is already stepping ahead, also HSPA 7.2 is already basically the same speed as field testing, so while LTE is being upgraded by verizon, ATT is getting higher speeds anyway.

    • Th3Claude

      This guy IS aware that Sprint’s 3G is faster than AT&T, right? That’s also including an unlimited data plan that dwarfs the other services in price, right? I have a feeling this guy is mentally handicapped…

  • contreras

    WiMAX is being used in all these countries for fixed internet access, as long as it’s cheaper. The US is the only one marketing it as “4G”. It’s just a normal / standard IP access network. WiMAX is very limited because of compatibility and frequency, and that’s the reason why Clearwire is revising their “4G” campaign and might invest in LTE instead.

    Not saying that it’s better, but in terms of frequencies (bands, FDD, multiple bandwidths) and ecosystem (3GPP), LTE is way ahead.

  • William

    The problem with the 700MHz (VERIZON) spectrum is, a lower frequency signal means it carries less data per second. Second, signals in this frequency range go a long, long way, through walls and across miles. This is great for one-way signals. After all, that’s how current analog TV is broadcast. But while going only a hundred feet or so isn’t very efficient for Internet signals, going many miles with a strong signal isn’t great either. The technical issue: the farther your signal goes, the more data one needs it to carry — because it must serve more people. Imagine a 30-megabit Ethernet cable being expected to serve 10,000 people. Good idea? Not so much.Ok, so you say you can solve that by having more towers in a given area so some people can talk to one tower and some to another, splitting up the load. But the problem is that 700MHz signals are so strong that you can’t put multiple towers close too each other, because they interfere.Don’t believe me? In the US, our GSM cell phones already operate in both the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands. Some areas have 850MHz service, some have 1900mhz service. 850MHz is low frequency also, and therefore a close comparison to the 700MHz spectrum (particularly since the 700MHz band really operates at closer to an 800MHz frequency).Riddle me this Batman. Does any cell carrier use 850MHz as anything other than filler (if they use it at all) in urban areas? Nope, because it carries *less* data and you can’t have as many towers.Uh Oh.(NOTE: if you really want to understand the technical issues, read this article on gigaOM. The best part is the comments from people with radio engineering backgrounds.) So why would all these non-carrier companies (like VERIZON) be getting all giddy about 700mhz for data? Answer: the same reason people believed they could light up major metropolitan areas with ubiquitous wifi.In other words: I. Don’t. Know. The bottom line is the 700MHz spectrum works well for the incumbent carriers, for which any spectrum is good spectrum. For the other non-incumbent entrants — not so much. Actually, the fact that Frontline dropped out is some reflection of sanity around the issue. 

    • The Masked One

      This is completely wrong. The principal difference between carrier bands (e.g., between 1900MHz and 700MHz) is propagation effects, not information capacity – in the products, the same baseband processing occurs, and hence the same information capacity.

      As for numbers of towers, that’s a function of [typically] uplink capacity requirements AND propagation. You necessarily need more towers at higher carrier frequencies. Welcome to physics.

      TMO

  • Sheena

    The $140 thing fits in your pocket, runs for four hours on a lithium-ion battery, connects up to 8 laptops via Wi-Fi, and works like a charm when you’re in a decent WiMax coverage area. (You still need to connect a WiMax modem, which costs $50 and requires a data plan.)
    More Clear WiMax Details: http://is.gd/8Erfn

  • tony

    that map isnt up todate charlotte greensboro raleigh a lot of the smaller citys in nc have wimax.

  • William

    Quated straight from AT&T ” HSPA 7.2 is part of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) family of technologies, which include GSM and UMTS. Emerging LTE technology is also part of the 3GPP technology roadmap, enabling AT&T’s network to offer backward compatibility, or the ability for users with qualifying devices to seamlessly switch among 4G LTE, 3G and 2G service areas to maintain the fastest-available connection. This availability will be critical for customers in the early years of LTE deployment across the industry, when access to LTE service will be limited by roll-out schedules and device availability.
    it will be supported by substantial additional wireless backhaul, the critical connections that carry traffic from cell sites to AT&T’s IP backbone network. This backhaul capacity, including thousands of new connections last year, is being designed to support not only HSPA 7.2, but also 4G LTE, which AT&T plans to began trialing in 2009 and deploying by mid 2011. “

  • maxpayne79

    check out the superstars in Canada there. 1. How u like them apples eh?

  • hennedy
1 2
blog comments powered by Disqus