Infonetics Report Highlights 2007 WiMAX Growth

WiMAX is hot and getting hotter. That’s essentially the conclusion reached by Infonetics in its recent WiMAX and Mesh Network Equipment and Devices report.

 

Just how hot? During 2007, the WiMAX market grew sequentially 46 percent (for the year), with worldwide sales (fixed and mobile) just shy of $800 million. That number was reached thanks to deployments in more than 80 countries around the world.

 

Infonetics predicted that commercial WiMAX network deployments will continue growing during 2008 and beyond—with market value projected at $7 billion by 2011.

 

What’s driving the WiMAX market? Here is Infonetics analyst Richard Webb: “Among the most significant developments: Cisco's acquisition of mobile WiMAX vendor Navini Networks, the market entrance of specialist ASN gateway vendor WiChorus, the launch of WiMAX phones and Ultra Mobile PCs, and the new Open WiMAX initiative, which promotes disruptive, all-IP open WiMAX architecture, and should lead to best-of-breed solutions with inter-vendor interoperability.”

 

Attaching vendor names to WiMAX market growth, Infonetics reported that, for 2007, Alvarion led the worldwide fixed WiMAX equipment market in terms of revenue, followed by Airspan. In the mobile arena, the number one and two spots were held by Motorola and Samsung, respectively.