Maravedis recently launched its new WiMAX tracking service called WiMAXCounts (www.WiMAXCounts.com). The service includes an online database, a reporting system, and a quarterly newsletter. In May 2007, when the service became commercially available, WiMAXCounts was tracking over 100 WiMAX operators across 36 countries. Although this is not a full representation of the WiMAX ecosystem, we estimate that WiMAXCounts covers 80% of BWA/WiMAX subscribers and 50% of BWA/WiMAX operators.
The first WiMAXCounts quarterly newsletter was issued in June 2007, and sent to customers. The purpose of the 40-page newsletter is to summarize the data contained in WiMAXCounts and to provide value-added analysis on the latest WiMAX trends and statistics.
Some of the key findings in WiMAXCounts:
The 100+ operators covered in WiMAXCounts accounted for 950,000 subscribers as of Q1 2007. These subscribers used a mix of WiMAX and proprietary technologies.
Close to 1/3 of the subscribers were using WiMAX-certified technology.
The WiMAX subscriber base grew 85% between Q1 2006 and Q1 2007.
The average number of subscribers per operator in Q1 2007 was 18,227 for WISPs and 5,800 for CLECs.
Clearwire USA was the top operator in number of subscribers, reporting 232,000 subscribers in United States at the end of Q1 2007.
The United States, Spain, and Australia were the top 3 countries in number of subscribers in Q1 2007, accounting for 0.5 million WiMAX subscribers. Representing how much in percentage?
WiMAX service revenues in 2006 among WiMAXCounts operators totalled US$322 million, with recorded ARPUs of US$ 40.76 and US$ 145.54 for residential and business subscribers, respectively. So the WiMAX Market overall is about 400 million; does WC represent 80% of WiMAX?
The split by subscriber type was 58% residential and 42% business.
APAC accounted for 38% of deployments, Europe 33%, North America 17%, and CALA 13%.
WiMAXCounts showed that 52% of the deployments used proprietary equipment, 36% applied the 802.16-2004 standard, and 12% applied the Wave 1 802.16-2005 standard.
The average downstream speeds for residential users and business users were 1.6 Mbps and 2.1 Mbps, respectively, while the average upstream speeds were 1.0 Mbps and 1.8 Mbps.
The 3.3-3.8 GHz band is the most widely used, with 64% of WiMAXCounts operators deploying their WiMAX networks in this band.
The region with the highest WiMAX service revenue accumulated from Q1 2006 to Q1 2007 was North America, with nearly US$200 million.
APAC operators offer the highest speeds, yet APAC also has the lowest residential ARPU at US$30.45.
More than half of WiMAX packages for either residential or business have upstream speeds between 256 kbps and 780 kbps.
There is no specific pattern for whether WiMAX is lower or higher in price than DSL. However, the price difference between these two technologies tends to be narrow, which tends to negate price as a factor for potential customers.