Nokia, one of the high-profile founders of the WiMax
Forum, has left the organisation, raising questions over whether
the technology's merits have been overstated.
The mobile phone company said it decided not to renew its
membership in the group, but denied that the move was intended to
throw doubt on WiMax.
However, WiMax will be of limited interest to Nokia until its
mobility aspects arrive, which will not be for several years, the
company said. It said it will continue to contribute to WiMax
standardisation.
Nokia, along with Intel, Fujitsu and other wireless players,
founded the WiMax Forum in April last year as a way of focusing
interest on the IEEE 802.16 family of wireless broadband
standards.
The first standard to be ratified, 802.16d, aims to deliver
speeds of up to 70Mbps over a range of 31 miles to fixed users, and
an 802.16e upgrade is to add mobile capabilities.
The forum's success is such that equipment maker Navini
Networks, which formerly backed the rival 802.20 standard, recently
switched camps, while telecommunications heavyweights such as BT
Group, France Télécom and Qwest Communications have also come on
board. Alcatel has announced the first 802.16d equipment using
Intel chips, which should appear later this year and be ratified
next year.
The WiMax Forum members, chiefly Intel, have gone to great
efforts to promote WiMax as the way to standardise both fixed and
mobile broadband wireless networks, but the reality is that only
fixed systems will be in use in the near future, said industry
analysts.
As a result, companies interested in using WiMax as a
replacement for or complement to fixed technologies such as DSL are
flocking to join the forum, while those interested in mobility are
keeping their distance.
"The companies most advocating WiMax seem to see it as a
wireless DSL proposition," said Dean Bubley, founder of Disruptive
Analysis. "It plays more to fixed carriers than to the cellular
market, where Nokia has more of a core customer base."
Unlike other equipment makers in the Forum, Nokia does not sell
proprietary fixed broadband wireless equipment; and the immediate
use of the WiMax standard will be to standardise such offerings,
Nokia argued.
Intel has said it did not expect WiMax to arrive in notebook
computers for two or three years, and the delay will be a year or
two beyond that for smaller devices such as mobile phones, further
reducing Nokia's interest in WiMax.
Another factor could be Nokia's difficulties in other parts of
its business. The company's market share in mobile phone handsets
dropped to 29% in the first quarter of this year from 35% in the
same period a year ago, even though handset suppliers overall saw a
40% uptick in shipments worldwide.
Nokia has said it would reduce prices to increase its market
share, but this could come at the expense of profitability, Bubley
said. "Given their recent results, their investors may be
scrutinising their spending on everything."
Nokia is involved in a deal to take over a majority share in
smartphone operating system maker Symbian, but Symbian is also
struggling to widen its reach outside its high-end niche in the
handset market, and has seen sales drop.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has said it would back out of the market
for Wi-Fi gear, despite having quickly become one of the biggest
players in the market. It claimed it was dropping Wi-Fi to apply
what it had learned to future products, according to reports.
Industry analysts said the move was probably because of low
margins and the confusing standards roadmap for Wi-Fi
equipment.
Matthew Broersmawrites for
Techworld.com