Service & Market Planning, Key for Increasing WiMAX Thrust

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In a country like India where most of the population resides in not in the big cities not in small and unconnected villages of the country

A technology like WiMax does make sense, however, determining the proper business case for a particular WiMAX deployment is often the outcome of extensive market research and competitive analysis that includes assessment of the existing broadband, PSTN, Cellular and VoIP competitive dynamics.

Additionally, the service provider should define what kind of Wimax based services they would like to offer. We can define different types of services that a WiMAX operator can consider offering. These include Broadband Access, VoIP, Value Added Wireless Service and Advertising focused services.

Broadband Wireless Access or BWA
WiMAX promises a dramatic decrease in the price per megabit of broadband wireless access (BWA). This, along with the ability to rapidly deploy WiMAX networks and offer plug-and-play portable and mobile wireless services, will give new WiMAX operators a competitive advantage. BWA will constitute the bulk of most WiMAX operators’ revenue in the early years of a business case.

Primarily, there are two main categories of BWA service that are defined as Residential BWA and Business BWA. These are essentially high speed, connections to the Internet. A services provider offering Wimax needs to determine how many residential service level agreements (SLA) to offer. An SLA is a negotiated agreement between a service provider and a consumer. It is a subscription choice which typically defines the service level offered (i.e. a bit rate) for a given monthly fee.  

Most of the service providers offering Wimax tend to offer a couple of residential SLAs to give their consumers a choice of service and price while positioning their offering according to the competitive landscape in their particular market. For instance, in a market where wired broadband access using DSL or Cable networks have limited coverage, a WiMAX operator will price its service based on the incrasing demand for BWA.

On the other hand, in most developing countries where wired broadband access is limited and where PC penetration is growing, these Personal Computers use dial-up service at the rate of 56 kbps. Here, a 384 kbps service will look attractive. In other countries where DSL & Cable service is ubiquitous and the competitive environment has put pressures on prices, an operator has to carefully analyze the market prior to determining what would constitute a winning strategy for a particular market and related geography.
As we move ahead, WiMax will continue to play a vital role in India in terms of becoming a big agent of connectivity and helping the overall telecom ecosystem move towards higher ground of next generation access.