The broadband buzz
While the country is certainly moving towards being on par with its international counterparts, when it comes to technologies and solutions, local broadband penetration is extremely low in comparison to other emerging countries, despite significantly increasing as a result of lower prices and increased competition.
As such, there is a potentially large market for fixed broadband WiMaX, particularly in urban and suburban locales in developing countries, such as SA, where a lack exists of an installed base of wire-line broadband networks.
Governments or service providers which are eager to quickly catch up with developed countries without massive, expensive and slow network rollouts could use WiMaX to leapfrog ahead. As such, vendors and carriers of these networks will find it easy to promote the value of WiMaX to support broadband data and voice in the fixed environment.
Although the initial WiMaX deployments are likely to be point to point and point to multipoint fixed applications, the full potential of this technology will only be realised when used for innovative, nomadic and mobile broadband applications. Eventually, end-users will become accustomed to high-speed broadband at home and work and, as such, they will demand the same service in a nomadic or mobile context. Service providers will then most likely turn to WiMaX to meet these demands.
While wireless solutions will persist in making inroads into the communication landscape, fixed lines will continue to be the preferred connection choice well into the future. What will improve, however, is the medium for these connections and the time to delivery and, as a result, the market will witness an increasing use of technologies such as WiMaX and metro Ethernet – resulting in increased availability of infrastructure and enhanced speeds respectively.
Additionally, the increase in the broadband user base, teamed with the increase in competition will certainly result in a drop in international and national capacity costs, which will lead to the cost of broadband dropping further.
Another interesting opportunity for WiMaX is the potential to service as the backhaul connection to the burgeoning Wi-Fi hotspots market. In numerous developing markets, a growing number of Wi-Fi hotspots are being deployed in public areas such as convention centres, hotels, airports and coffee shops. Most of these Wi-Fi hotspot operators currently use wired broadband connections to connect the hotspots back to a network point of presence.
WiMaX could serve as a faster and cheaper alternative to wired backhaul for these hotspots. Using the point-to-multipoint transmission capabilities of WiMaX to serve as backhaul links to hotspots could substantially improve the business case for Wi-Fi hotspots and provide further momentum for hotspot deployment.
New forms of wireless protocols are overcoming challenges of terrain, infrastructure and finance. By leveraging broadband wireless standards, like Wi-Fi, GSM mobility and WiMaX, and by implementing mobile computing architecture, virtual offices are becoming a reality in many companies.
Furthermore, these wireless applications provide intelligent roaming capabilities when moving from one wireless cell to another, which means that employees would not waste time reconnecting, or would not lose critical data because of dropped connections.
In terms of wireless communication, the fundamentals for continued growth remain sound. Broadband is becoming a necessity for many residential and business subscribers worldwide and pre-standard wireless access technologies are already becoming reliable and cost-effective complements or alternatives to providing voice and data services.
Mobility improves communication
Mobility is often prompted as a means of enhancing collaboration and improving communications. However, it is also a vital element that can help businesses to become more responsive to the market and customers by delivering new services.
A properly and effectively managed mobility strategy enhances business resilience. Business resilience, the latest iteration for business continuity, encompasses a subtle shift in thinking. It is moving away from a traditional IT-centric, data-protection approach to a holistic business concept that focuses on handling the upside of risk. In essence, resilience facilitates the realisation of new revenue streams by using mobility solutions, while also protecting those already in existence.
Companies are already using mobility solutions to provide a flexible alternative or back-up to the public-switched telephone network (PSTN), so that customer services keeps running when buildings are unavailable due to transport or utilities disruptions, for example. The potential to use mobility solutions to support business resilience extends far beyond the locally stored data file.
Building a flexible organisational structure around IP-based technologies gives organisations the potential to enhance their resilience, whatever the future holds. Industry commentators now argue that such resilience can demonstrate a company’s competitive advantage.
Locally, there is no doubt that there has been a dramatic evolution of mobile and wireless technologies over recent years and the industry is seeing an influx of various new solutions and offerings in the market.
However, the concept of mobility in many organisations is normally only practiced by a few individuals – if that – and hardly ever firmly integrated into overall operations to achieve business goals through improved customer service. It is clear that it is worth investing time and effort to reengineer established business practices – by implementing mobility as part of the fabric of the local organisational infrastructure.
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