WiMax is the logical answer for Africa

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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Rick Rogers, Director of Alvarion, says that Africa is one of the most promising regions in the world for WiMax. The lack of developed cable infrastructures here is forcing the search for the best alternatives, and trends indicate that operators are choosing to use wireless broadband rather than satellite connectivity for cellular backhaul.

Extensive financial investment in Africa by various organisations, such as the IMF and the World Bank, is stimulating the economy and creating an environment for private business. This economic growth is also energising a growing consumer market for connectivity, as populations across Africa seek to catch up with trends in developed countries.

“True computing mobility is not the pipedream it used to be,” Rogers says. “It has in fact, for various business and environmental reasons, become more of a necessity than an option. Industry leaders are aggressively launching technologies which will give consumers even more mobility and connectivity. Alvarion is at the forefront of mobile computing and WiMax, in particular, is one such technology that will be a catalyst in the global marketplace as far as mobility is concerned.”

He adds that the key challenge is to rapidly meet the demand for broadband in Africa, as more people and governments realise that a key means to bridging the digital divide is the existence of readily-available primary broadband connectivity. WiMax is the obvious choice, because it offers a very cost-effective solution with fast deployment cycles, thereby facilitating a super-fast response to the needs of operators in the different countries across the continent.

Furthermore, WiMax will bring lower costs for both operators and end users, allowing new entrants to construct and build attractive business models to address both the residential and business segments.

The WiMax Forum recently announced that it projects more than 133 million Wimax users globally by 2012. Of these, 70 percent will use mobile and portable devices to access broadband Internet services. WiMax allows high-speed Internet access from laptops, phones or other mobile devices over greater distances than previous technologies.

With 80 percent of South Africans owning a mobile phone, consumers are in the ideal position to embrace WiMax as a technology which can stretch the way they live and work in any direction. PCs are increasingly taking a back seat to a new breed of laptops, ultra-mobile PCs, mobile internet devices and cellphones, with notebooks and other handheld devices continuing to be the fastest growing computing segment.

“Nokia has recently launched a WiMax-enabled handset and Intel has made aggressive statements around new products which will integrate WiMax,” Rogers says. “Intel plans to launch a product called Montevina in mid-2008, which will become the company’s next-generation Centrino mobile platform. On the wireless front, Montevina notebooks will be ready to connect with the latest networks, out of the box.”

Wireless technologies, Rogers says, will continue to compete for your wallet and air space as its competitive landscape pushes fringe mobile computing devices into the background. “Mobility is no longer an expensive, top-level business tool, but something that is accessible to the man in the street. As long as consumers keep adopting mobile technology, they will expect it to evolve.”

WiMax in Africa – give your views