LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM: Adoption levels and network performance in India and the US will dictate how WiMAX is perceived in a global context, and thus how prominent a position 802.16e takes in the overall wireless landscape in the next decade, according to Market research firm Infonetics Research's latest report.

Infonetics Research's latest report, 'WiMAX Equipment and Subscribers in Key Markets', which tracks targeted regions and countries that have strong potential for mobile (802.16e) and fixed line (802.16d) WiMAX markets—either because they have huge populations, or the broadband demands of the population are not being met by existing technologies—including the US, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil.

Richard Webb, directing analyst for WiMAX, microwave, and mobile devices at Infonetics Research, said: "India, because of its scale, and the US, because of Clearwire’s profile, are the two most prominent markets for WiMAX, and both are absolutely critical to its fortunes."

Report Highlights
India is the largest single-country WiMAX opportunity in the world, with most of the major operators actively pursuing WiMAX (BSNL, Tata, Bharti Airtel, etc); deployments are well-underway with acceleration in adoption experienced in many telecoms circles

In India, Telsima—now Harris-Stratex—led the WiMAX equipment market in 2008, followed by Alcatel-Lucent and WiMAX specialist Aperto

After a slowdown during the recession in 2009, WiMAX adoption in the US will be healthy, led by Clearwire and a growing number of small-town and rural deployments by other operators, many benefiting from rural broadband stimulus funding

The report also says that WiMAX is growing in Russia, Brazil, driven by basic broadband needs and VoIP.