Could the cost of a kilowatt-hour kill mobile broadband?

By Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 16 January 2007 01:00

Strategy

There has been endless debate on the relative merits of and prospects for cellular, W-Fi and WiMAX in the evolution of mobile broadband communications. Now research company ABI Research has added another factor, arguing that the lower power consumption of Wi-Fi and WiMAX will weigh significantly in their favour.

"Introduction of mobile broadband...means that the energy required per subscriber arising from increasing data uptake will push per-subscriber energy OPEX for cellular solutions past acceptable barriers - unless carriers move from a traditional cellular-only approach to one that integrates WiMAX and Metro Wi-Fi," the company claims.

Stuart Carlaw, director of wireless research at ABI Research, says that "From a pure coverage perspective WiMAX is twice as energy-cost-effective and metro Wi-Fi is 50 times more energy-cost-effective than WCDMA. When data traffic is factored into the equation, WiMAX can accommodate 11 times today's average data consumption and still be more energy-cost-efficient compared to WCDMA or HSDPA."

According to ABI Research, energy costs represent the third most significant operating expense item for cellular carriers today, and fluctuating energy costs are a significant area of concern for business planners.

A recent ABI Research study found that, globally the total energy consumption arising from mobile broadband service delivery is forecast to grow from 42.8 billion kilowatt hours (KWh) in 2005 to 124.4 billion KWh in 2011. The Asia Pacific region will account for the majority of this growth.

ABI's report, "Energy Efficiency Analysis for Mobile Broadband Solutions," claims to provide "a theoretical and real-world analysis of the relative costs of deploying WCDMA, HSDPA, CDMA2000 1xRTT, EV-DO, WiMAX, and Municipal Wi-Fi."