By Khettiya Jittapong
BANGKOK (Reuters) -
Pent-up demand for mobile Internet in
emerging markets in Asia will boost growth of WiMax, a new
super high speed wireless technology, industry executives said
on Wednesday.
There were 1.5 million WiMax subscribers globally last year
and the number should breach 5 million this year, said Sunil
Kumar, director of marketing at Beceem Communications Inc, a
U.S.-based provider of chips for the mobile broadband market.
"This is an important year for WiMax. We can see a lot of
trials going on around the globe," Kumar told Reuters.
The number of WiMax subscribers worldwide was expected to
reach 36 million by 2011, Phil Marshall, senior vice president
of consultant firm Yankee Group told an industry conference.
WiMax, expected to bring new revenues to the telecoms
sector, allows users with a WiMAX-enabled laptops or mobile
devices to download data, songs and movies at distances as much
as tens of kilometers.
It is a big brother to Wi-Fi, which connects users to
networks over short distances. The number of WiMAX subscribers
in Asia was expected to rise to more than 11 million by 2011,
accounting for 30 percent of the WiMAX subscribers globally, a
conference statement said.
About 281 WiMAX networks have been deployed by 29 companies
and 15 chipmakers, said Daniel Cho, chief strategy office of
South Korea's POSDATA, which is working with a Thai telecoms
firm on WiMax trials in Bangkok.
By 2010, 650 million people around the world would have
WiMax coverage, Cho said.
Given the low Internet penetration rate in Asia and the
fact that anyone can surf Internet with small devices like
WiMax-enabled cameras, the growth potential was huge, the
executives said.
"Asia's cell phone penetration rate is still very low. The
rate might be remarkable in urban areas, but in rural areas,
that's huge market to grow," Kumar said.
Beceem, which competes with bigger rivals like Intel, was
looking for opportunities to work with leading operators in
emerging markets and in Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and
Vietnam, Kumar said.
Motorola, which makes mobile devices and infrastructure
with WiMax technology, has joined Thailand's United Information
Highway Co Ltd to conduct trials in Bangkok and on the resort
island of Phuket.
The number of broadband Internet customers in Thailand was
expected to reach 6-7 percent of the 65-million population by
2011 from below two percent now, said Mike Ropicky, senior
director for marketing and product operation for a Motorola
unit.
"That's a dramatic growth and WiMax will be one of the
means of access for Thai people to get into the Internet,"
Ropicky said.
Thailand is expected to start commercial services of WiMaX
sometime next year after the telecoms regulators allowed 12
local companies to test the services last year.
(Reporting by Khettiya Jittapong, Editing by Louise
Heavens)
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