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.
