Successful mobile WiMAX trial reported in Thailand

Motorola is teaming up with one of Thailand's leading fiberoptic service providers, UIH, to test a mobile WiMAX trial system in the cities of Bangkok and Phuket. Thailand hopes to begin offering commercial WiMAX sometime in 2009.

The demonstration marked exactly one year since that nation's National Telecommunications Commission said it would begin issuing licenses for WiMAX operators. Motorola and UIH made the announcement this morning at the WiMAX World Asia Expo in Bangkok.

For a mobile WiMAX implementation to achieve "full mobility performance" stature, its signal must be received successfully, and transfer seamlessly from station to station, while the receiver is on a fast-moving commuter train, with average speed of 100 kph.

WiMAX technology was already proven in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia, but mobile WiMAX is a huge leap forward, for many reasons: first due to the region's notorious geographical features and obstacles, and second because WiMAX wasn't originally designed for mobility anyway. It's not a cellular system; its mobile receivers were originally presumed to be stationary.

The expected range of a normal WiMAX system still causes very heated debates among industry professionals, but networks in Asia are expected to have a range of tens of miles; a vast difference over Wi-Fi, which can work over a couple hundred feet gap.

There are only 1.5 million global WiMAX users right now, but analysts and companies expect that number to balloon to 5 million by the end of 2008. That number is expected to reach more than 35 million in 2011.

"The successful trials with UIH affirms WiMAX as a feasible wireless technology for the roll-out of cost-effective broadband services to urban and remote areas within a short deployment timeframe," said Eric Starnes, general manager and Southeast Asia's regional director, Motorola Home & Networks Mobility.

Motorola already is involved in 19 WiMAX contracts in 44 countries, but sees Asia as the best market for future WiMAX growth. Large cities in Asia have a high Internet and mobile phone penetration rates, but WiMAX-enabled devices such as cameras and phones can have a major impact on rural areas.

Specifically, Thai companies believe Internet penetration in Thailand is only 15%, so the growth possibilities of a well-priced, reliable Internet system is high.