Africa predicted for 10% of global WiMax market

27 Oct 2008

It may be five or more years into the future, but the prospect of next-generation, ultra-fast 4G services has certainly piqued the interest of experts and operators.

The African market offers high growth potential for WiMax and wireless broadband networks in a wide range of scenarios for different business cases and sizes of operations, says Rick Rogers, director, Alvarion - provider of WiMax and wireless broadband network solutions.

Economic growth in the region is being fuelled by extensive financial investment by various organisations, such as the IMF and World Bank, which is creating an environment for private business. “Since communications are essential for any business to succeed, the need for communications is serving as a catalyst for the demand for broadband and voice connectivity.”

This economic growth is also fuelling consumer demand for connectivity as populations across Africa seek to catch up with trends in developed countries. In this atmosphere of growth and demand for communications, the lack of developed cable infrastructures is forcing the search for the best alternative.

Trends show that operators are choosing to use wireless broadband rather than satellite connectivity for cellular backhaul. Africa is one of the most promising regions in the world for WiMax. Rogers says that in just the last 12 months, the region more than tripled in revenue shipments and is on target to account for more than 10% of the global WiMax market.

This can be explained by a variety of reasons, Rogers says: “Firstly, satellite data connectivity is extremely expensive. Also, latency issues associated with the communications of satellite networks mean that they are often unsuitable for a mix of services such as voice, video and data.”

Regulators across Africa understand the need for a wireless broadband infrastructure that can provide readily-available broadband connectivity to their populations. Consequently, they are actively working to establish the necessary spectrum allocations, in order to facilitate the introduction of mobile WiMax networks. “By the end of 2006 there were 62 WiMax licenses awarded in Africa, and new allocations took place during 2007 as well,” says Rogers. “Approximately 92% of the deployments in the region are using the 3.4-3.6 GHz spectrum, with the remaining in lower bands such as 2.5 GHz.”

The key challenge is to rapidly meet the demand for broadband in the region, as more people and governments realise that a key catalyst to bridging the digital divide is the existence of readily available primary broadband connectivity. According to Rogers WiMax will bring lower costs for both operators and end users, allowing new entrants to construct and build attractive business models to address both the residential and business segments.

“Affordability, availability, mobility, and ease of use support the adoption of WiMax,” says Rogers. “This, in turn, will increase broadband penetration in the region, and possibly more internet service providers will emerge from current large mobile operators."