Day: December 12, 2008

Posted on

Alcatel will cut WiMAX investment

As I have previously speculated here and only two hours ago, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) will cut WiMAX investment.

As I could easily guess, the WiMAX market has shrunk enough for ALU to get out of the business, thus focusing in their core business and future LTE.

Alcatel-Lucent will reduce spending on WiMAX by “partnering, co-sourcing and participating in the consolidation of the industry,” it said. Other areas that will meet the same fate include customer premise equipment, some legacy applications, and the company’s portfolio of fixed-line telecommunications products not based on the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) core.

To me it is clear that ALU will partnet with Alvarion for Mobile WiMAX, as they have done in the past with the “Fixed” WiMAX. These are great news for Alvarion as another big player is getting out of the Market; Nortel has announced the same a few months ago and partnered with Alvarion, though I don’t think we have seen the result in Alvarion’s balance sheet.

What Next?

Other two big players are Motorola and Samsung:

  • Samsung – I don’t expect Samsung giving up on WiMAX, as it is their beachhead into the Mobile World outside Korea
  • Motorola – More difficult to predict, but if I have to, my guess is MOTO will also get out of the WiMAX business.
Posted on

Alvarion overtakes ALU, MOTO in Mobile WiMAX

From infonetics Research: Alvarion overtakes ALU, MOTO.

The report is pessimistic on the prospects of Mobile WiMAX for next 12 month:

With less cash available for network rollout — and possibly less spectrum being auctioned until the current financial crisis passes — WiMAX deployment will be inhibited for the next 12 months. Infonetics expects revenue growth to return to the overall WiMAX market in 2010, with growth being driven by mobile WiMAX, as a growing number of WiMAX networks are being rolled out based on 802.16e, even if initial services will be fixed CPE-based broadband. Market leader Alvarion’s migration of its customer base from fixed to mobile WiMAX is a prime example of the preference service providers are showing for mobile WiMAX,” said Richard Webb, wireless analyst for Infonetics Research.

I still believe ALU will announce today they are going out of the Mobile WiMAX Business, as I also believe many Tier 1 will wait for LTE.

These are also good news for Alvarion, as in the long run they will benefit from this slow down, as the Big players will go out of the market, leaving the Emerging Markets to Alvarion, Airspan, Redline,…