Developing Telecoms | Emerging markets leaders Russia and Brazil choose WiMAX

21 May 2012

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Emerging markets leaders Russia and Brazil choose WiMAX

Wednesday, 01 November 2006 01:00 | Michael Schwartz

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Demand outstrips supply in Russia - Maravedi

Russia's economy is flourishing and demand is quickly outpacing the supply of telecoms services provided by the legacy wired telecoms infrastructure dating from the communist era. "Russian Federation Broadband & WiMAX Market Analysis - Forecasts for 2006-2010" comes to this conclusion in a new in-depth review of the broadband wireless and WiMAX markets and regulatory activity taking place in Russia. Once again written by Maravedi, the review poses several questions:

How does the Russian market stand in the context of increased international WiMAX activity?
How large will the pie become by 2010?
What are the obstacles still ahead of large-scale deployments?

Well, Maravedi predicts consolidation among the 200 relevant current service providers active in the country. The report includes profiles of the top ten service providers in Russia and concludes that the most active players will be companies with deep pockets that belong to one of three major holdings in Russia: Alfa, Sistema and Telekom Invest. This trio controls both fixed and mobile service providers.

However, shortage of spectrum and very stringent regulation for equipment and licensing are serious obstacles for any major adoption of broadband wireless and WiMAX in Russia.

For WiMAX to prosper in Russia, frequency bands in the 2 GHz range (2.3-2.4GHz and/or 2.5-2.7GHz) must be made available to commercial operators.Maravedi is keen to stress that there is huge potential for broadband wireless Internet and VoIP services in Russia because there are still more than 40,000-50,000 towns and villages with no basic communications services. In financial terms the total accumulated equipment market size for BWA/WiMAX in Russia will represent US$360million by 2010 from US$27million last year, which makes Russia an important market for BWA/WiMAX vendors for the years to come.

Curing curare? Intel promotes WiMAX in Brazil

South America's Amazon River is as amazing for its width as much as its length, no more so than when one considers that Parintins is a town supporting 114,000 citizens on a single island in the Amazon Basin! Intel has recently been very proud of its WiMAX-based work in the area, having enabled Parintins to receive broadband for the benefit of local companies and schools, and even the town's hospital. This is where tele-medicine will greatly reinforce the capabilities of the existing staff - a mere 32 doctors. WiMAX replaces the human cost of laying cable in hostile environments, and the higher-than-normal maintenance cost of keeping cable going in almost corrosive conditions.

Quite clearly Intel is confident of the part WiMAX can play in helping out remote communities. With the added expertise arising from remote diagnostics, 15-hour journeys to see a specialist in Manaus would be far less frequent.

To install the service, it was necessary to build a tower to accommodate the demands of long-range wireless technology. As well as the hospital, beneficiaries from WiMAX include a community centre, a university and two schools. In all, Intel hopes it will be helping 1,500 students and 10,000 community members.

Brazil is once again prominent within the most promising target markets for WiMAX. This particular project consigns existing dial-up connections to history, and is notable for the selection of WiMAX over any other broadband technology. The Parintins WiMAX structure gives Intel - a long-term believer in the technology - a chance to showcase WiMAX technology. Extending the debate somewhat, one is entitled to ask questions over the long-term future of WiFi.

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