WiMAX has the benefit of a mature and innovative chipset ecosystem. Increasing volumes is now the priority to lower prices further.
WiMAX has the benefit of a mature and innovative chipset ecosystem. Increasing volumes is now the priority to lower prices further.
When WiMAX supporters put forward the business case for deployment, they invariably refer to a mature and highly competitive WiMAX chipset ecosystem as one of their trump cards. With over 20 WiMAX chipset manufacturers in existence-and each appearing (so far) to appreciate the importance of growing the market by keeping prices down through not making any exorbitant royalty claims on patents-it looks a forceful point to make.
But the proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating. Yet the WiMAX camp, with some justification, can claim they are starting to deliver on the promise of lower-cost devices directly as a result of competitively priced chipsets.
When Xohm (now Clearwire) fully launched its Mobile WiMAX service in Baltimore in October 2008, the USB dongle-manufactured by ZTE using a Beceem chipset-retailed at an impressively low $59.99. WiMAX device chipsets, says Sprint, are in the $20 range.
“This is a far cry from what 3G can do on price,” says Lars Johnsson, VP of business development at Beceem. He argues it would cost a mobile operator twice as much to put a 3G dongle into the market. “The 3G chips are much more expensive due to ecosystem deficiencies where Qualcomm calls all the shots,” he continues.
Although Sprint-which fully owned the Xohm business unit at the time of commercial WiMAX launch-may have been able to lower its WiMAX device prices to a certain extent through the weight of its purchasing power, the third-largest operator in the US says there are “virtually no subsidies” on any of its end-user Xohm devices. (The Samsung PC express card retails for $59.99, while the Xohm modem from Zyxel sells at $79.99.)
Moreover, there are no lengthy contract lock-ins attached to the Clearwire service, something that mobile operators usually insist on as a form of a device subsidy if they are to give away their USB dongles and PC cards for ‘free’.