HSPA rules! But leaves a niche for WiMAX

Stuart Corner
Monday, 12 February 2007 05:17

Business IT - Technology

A global study by Arthur D Little has concluded that HSPA (HSDPA and HSUPA) will account for most mobile broadband deployments and that mobile WiMax will capture only niche markets.

The study, which claims to present "an unbiased view on the HSPA vs mobile WiMax debate," concludes that: "With over 93 commercial networks in operation, HSPA is likely to account for the majority of investment in global mobile broadband networks over the next five years...By comparison mobile WiMax will be a niche technology within the overall global mobile broadband wireless access market, likely to account for at most 15 percent of this network equipment market and perhaps 10 percent of mobile broadband wireless subscribers by 2011-2012."

To conduct the study, Arthur D Little consultants from its US and European offices interviewed 31 HSPA and WiMax equipment vendors, operators running the networks, government regulators and financial investors around the globe. They also "collaborated with Altran Telecoms & Media and Praxis HIS to collect some 300 parameters required for a quantitative assessment of the differences and modelled these in realistic deployment scenarios."

Martyn Roetter, director of Arthur D Little's US TIME (Telecoms, IT, Media and Electronics) practice said: "The momentum in HSDPA deployments has been stimulated by competition from other broadband wireless technologies and by the prospect of competition from mobile WiMax. However, there is as yet no convincing real-world evidence of the actual relative performances of these technologies in large scale deployments. Nevertheless, it is likely that these two technologies will achieve comparable levels of performance in typical real-world situations, contrary to the notion that mobile WiMax should be regarded as a 'Killer' technology."

Arthur D Little says its modelling work shows that WiMax systems are expected to achieve significantly greater theoretical peak data transfer rates than today's commercial HSPA networks deliver now, such as theoretical speeds of 16.8Mbps in urban areas vs 2-3Mbps for HSPA. "However, the coverage a WiMax base station can achieve, is substantially lower than HSPA, hence HSPA operators will be able to deploy a smaller number of base stations and sites to cover the same geography. Indications are that radio access network capex for current WiMax technology can significantly exceed HSDPA capex."