Heavy Deployments Mean Early Market Lead for Unlicensed Wireless Broadband, Says The Strategis Group
But Position Will Erode Over Time in Face of MMDS and LMDS Deployments
WASHINGTON, March 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite billions of dollars poured into U.S. broadband wireless licenses, unlicensed wireless technologies maintain a clear lead in terms of deployments to date, according to findings from a new report from The Strategis Group. While LMDS and MMDS growth will outpace unlicensed in the long-run, unlicensed operator service revenue is still set for annual growth of more than 75% for the next five years, according to the report, U.S. Fixed Wireless: Unlicensed Spectrum.
"For many people, U.S. fixed wireless activity is really limited to Teligent and Winstar," notes Peter Jarich, Director of North American Broadband Research for The Strategis Group. "In reality, however, service providers operating over the unlicensed ISM and U-NII bands are very common and have launched many more markets than all of the LMDS operators combined."
With on-going research in the space, an estimated 250 active unlicensed wireless operators were identified by The Strategis Group with approximately 500 to 1,000 more providing services on a one-off or trial basis. "Many of these guys are small," Jarich continues. "They are nowhere near household names. That said, we're seeing strong month-over-month growth and the emergence of a new set of unlicensed ISPs who all have aggressive national deployment plans for the next 18 months."
While the benefits of unlicensed wireless are clear -- no licensing costs, quick deployment, available equipment -- no technology is perfect. Signal interference and a lack of coordination to prevent markets from becoming quickly over-saturated are two key problems in the space.
According to Jamie Mendelson, The Strategis' Group's Director of International Broadband Research, "as more and more of these operators go forward with ambitious market launches, operators will inevitably end up butting heads and interference will follow. Service will suffer and operators will go out of business. LMDS and MMDS, as licensed spectrum, will have their own issues, but will not face the same technical difficulties."
Regardless of technical difficulties, strong business plans backed by capital and technical know-how should manage to survive, and opportunities for unlicensed will continue to be strong in suburban and rural areas where interference is less of an issue. As a result, The Strategis Group forecasts 2005 service revenues topping $730 million, more than 75% compound annual growth over 2000 levels. |
