This deal makes sense for both Sprint and LightSquared because they both need strategic partners to survive as the US mobile market consolidates and transitions to 4G.
4G, mobile broadband and emerging devices were the key themes at CTIA Wireless 2010, held March 23-25 in Las Vegas, US.
The WiMAX industry continues to suffer from delays and a lack of scale, but can now point to signs that volumes may finally be on the way due a growing number of significant deployments by operators such as Packet One in Malaysia, Yota and Comstar in Russia, Cleawire and its MVNO Time Warner Cable in the US, and UQ Communications in Japan.
Verizon Wireless is the latest US mobile operator to move into mobile broadband netbooks, following AT&T Mobility, but its sky-high prices don’t match the penny-pinching ethos of the netbook segment. In fact the Verizon deal costs $583 more than a similar deal in the UK, and highlights that the US has some of the highest mobile broadband prices in the world.
The long-awaited 3G capex boom in China is like a warm fire on a cold night for mobile networks vendors, many of which are struggling with everything from slack sales and falling margins to lingering integration problems.
Nortel is exiting the WiMAX market, the latest in a string of bad news for the technology. The move comes after Nortel declared bankruptcy earlier this month, forcing it to make harsh decisions about emerging or marginal product lines.
The story of WiMAX is a tale of two markets: one in which WiMAX, as an emerging technology, has made enormous progress over the past year; and one in which its opportunities are being threatened by developments in the larger converging broadband market, such as the relentless advance of rival mobile broadband system HSDPA and the acceleration of LTE developmen
The rapid and widespread success of mobile broadband services-which now have more than 100 million subscribers worldwide using more than 300 live networks-is sparking a data traffic boom that will revive the struggling mobile base station market, according to Mobile Networks Forecasts: Future Mobile Traffic, Base Stations & Revenues, a new strategic report and forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media.
The new WiMAX venture between Sprint Nextel, Clearwire and other players-including Intel, Google and three major cable operators-is big news for both WiMAX and the broader mobile broadband industry.
Attending and chairing the WiMAX Forum Congress Asia recently in Singapore provided an opportunity to take the pulse of the WiMAX industry in Asia Pacific.
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