Alcatel-Lucent still "firmly in the WiMAX game"
Published: 23 January, 2009
READ MORE: Alcatel-Lucent | WiMAX
When Alcatel-Lucent announced its major restructuring last month, it appeared to be defocusing on WiMAX, but it is now clear that it remains, as one executive put it this week, "firmly in the WiMAX game".
In terms of prioritizing R&D expenditure, LTE takes pole position for the existing 3G cellco base, explained the company, while WiMAX will be targeted at emerging economies, fixed/mobile convergence and new operators and business models. Other ALU sources said that they are working on projects geared to integration of LTE and WiMAX, for operators in the next decade that may look to use a combination of technologies
Its efforts are focused in particular on Asia-Pacific and it has major CPE development initiatives in India, and has its interoperability testing center in Taiwan up and running now. According to Taiwanese paper Digitimes, the vendor has conducted tests on WiMAX devices from eight Taiwanese vendors so far and is acting as a conduit to introduce these companies to possible customers in neighboring countries such as Hong Kong, Cambodia and Malaysia. ALU's main Taiwanese partners - as the ODM community becomes vital to the volumes and economics of the WiMAX model - include Asustek, Acctom, MediaTek, Delta Networks, ZyXEL and USI.
According to new research by Infonetics Research, Motorola, ALU, Alvarion and Huawei are the top vendors in the Mobile WiMAX market, as rated by carriers. They were selected from a total of 13 suppliers in terms of revenue share and carrier approval or spending intentions. Of course, cost effectiveness is a key metric when operators are making their selection, and Huawei scores particularly highly here. "Most WiMAX operators lack the deep pockets of longer established mobile incumbents. Vendors need a cohesive cost of ownership strategy that incorporates infrastructure, backhaul costs, and end point costs," said analyst Richard Webb.
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