Asia Pacific plugs into WiMax

But business issues have yet to be overcome.

Interest in WiMax wide area wireless networking technology is accelerating rapidly in the Asia Pacific region, but technology and business uncertainties remain, according to new research.

Analyst firm In-Stat estimates that the total Asia Pacific market, including WiMax customer premises equipment, base stations and commercial services, but excluding the non-radio-access element of WiMax, will be valued at US$106.4m in 2006, growing to US$4.3bn in 2011.

"No Asia Pacific service provider can ignore WiMax," said In-Stat analyst Victor Liu. "Providers need either to evaluate the possibility of adding WiMax to their existing services portfolio, or to assess the competitive pressure from other WiMax service providers."

The In-Stat research warned that equipment vendors, including chipset and equipment makers and system technology providers, will have to act very quickly to adopt the latest technical specifications and optimise equipment performance.

The study noted that trial network deployments are in progress in at least 13 Asia Pacific countries.

Many service providers in developing countries such as India, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia have shown great interest in setting up WiMax networks and extending telecoms services coverage to under-served locations.