Summary of WiMAX World 2007

In spite of the recent events surrounding the shift of leadership at Sprint and the resulting uncertain future of Xohm (mobile WiMAX) services, the future for WiMAX remains strong. The WiMAX World show two weeks ago appeared to be the largest yet. There was less hype than at previous events and more real hardware on the show floor. Fujitsu Microelectronics had two demonstrations: one a setup between two laptops simultaneously demonstrating their baseband chip for 802.16d, and a second 802.16e demonstration between a gateway and a television with the Fujitsu components being in the client only. The 802.16e demonstration was not done wirelessly because of the interference on the show floor, but was still impressive. Atmel was showing their RF chips for both AT86RF535B and AT86RF525B MHz for 802.16d. These components are unique because they support IEEE 802.16-2004 (.16d) and 802.16-2005 (.16e) WiMAX applications.  Samsung displayed a broad array of 802.16e-enabled mobile devices; from phones to laptop computers. The phones had a combination of three wireless communication protocols running on them: Samsung's WiBRO/802.16e, wCDMA, and the T-DMB broadcast protocol for video content.

It appears that the hurdle standing in the way of Sprint achieving its optimistic WiMAX phone forecast is actually the power-hungry WiMAX chips. Many companies are now developing more linear power amplifiers that will increase the efficiency of WiMAX phones, however much of this work is still in the technology R&D stage. Freescale announced high-power LDMOS chips to aid power amplifier component development, and we expect to see more of these types of announcements over the next 6 months.

It is interesting that companies are implementing power amplifiers in the low data rate wireless world as well. However, these applications require power amplifiers to overcome the ambient noise and increase the range. For these protocols, like ZigBee and proprietary 802.15.4 implementations, power consumption is not the issue that it is for WiMAX, because WiMAX is an OFDM protocol that by default uses more gates for its FFT and thus uses more power to operate.

As the ZigBee ecosystem matured, we began to see companies like Tendril, Atalum, and Synapsense who are focused of node registration and management. This was a signal of the sector's maturity. Similarly we are seeing companies like Bridgewater Systems taking this role in the WiMAX world. Bridgewater actually manages the registration and subscription allowances for companies like Sprint, Verizon, and Bell Atlantic, as well as others. The company's architecture can accommodate mixed networks of 802.16e, 802.16d, CDMA, DSL, cable, and pretty much any communication protocol you can think of. For Bridgewater the addition of WiMAX to its portfolio of capabilities is simply a minor tweak to its protocol. We think that since Bridgewater handles Sprint's services today, they are likely to incorporate the Xohm service as well.

The lingering question of where the radios for 802.16e are remains. Those demonstrating their baseband chip capabilities were not forthcoming as to the source of their radio chips. We maintain that the market for non-WiBro, mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e) is at best two and more likely four years away from really taking hold. The question will be whether more advanced emerging protocols, such as LTE, can be developed quickly enough to offer competition or whether the protocols will segment geographically.

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