MuniWireless

The marketing director of the WiMAX Forum stated at the recent WiMAX Forum Americas 2009 conference that there are 540 WiMAX network deployments in 146 countries (with 10 million WiMAX subscribers worldwide). The WiMAX Forum even has a map with little pin points indicating WiMAX networks.

However, Moyez Kassam, a WiMAX consultant who has spent several months in Chile, questions the accuracy of the data. He posted this message recently at the MuniWireless group on Linked In:

The Americas ‘09 WiMAX forum website shows that there are four (4) WiMAX deployments in Chile. I have been in Chile for the past six months working as a WiMAX consultant for a new operator and know for a fact that there are NONE. If anything there have been a couple of tests that were never deployed commercially. Peru is also no different where there are a couple of very small deployments but certainly not nine (9) as claimed.

I sent an email to the person who runs WiMAXmaps.org to inform them of Mr. Kassam’s observations and to ask them to verify the information on the map.

I know how challenging it is to keep an accurate database of deployments. I have tried to do the same on MuniWireless with my list of cities/counties that have large-scale Wi-Fi networks, as well as my map of mobile WiMAX, and I rely on other people to help me update my information.

UPDATE (8 Dec 2009): Elson Sutanto, an analyst at Informa, sent me this information regarding WiMAX in Chile and Peru:

This is Elson Sutanto of Informa telecoms & Media in London. I am an analyst with informa, and the reason why I am emailing you is because the team I work in that trackes mobile usage, metrics and usage in www.wcisdata.com supplies the WiMAX forum with its WIMAX data. I read recently on your website that a gentlemen had doubts about our WiMAX information in Chile and Peru. In short, he was explaining that there were no deployments in Chile. But in fact there are…here are some websites to news media articles showing this…

http://www.wimaxday.net/site/2008/01/17/telmex-covers-chile-with-wimax/ -Entel

http://www.wimaxday.net/site/2007/03/27/telmex-and-entel-forge-the-wimax-frontier-in-chile/ – Telmex

http://www.worldservicesgroup.com/publications.asp?action=article&artid=1975

http://www.protab.cl/i_c_soluciones.asp – Protab

EMAX - http://www.wimax.com/commentary/news/wimax_industry_news/emax-launches-pre-mobile-wimax-network-in-peru-with-navini – launched PreWIMAX

As for Peru only two networks are commercially in service. And eight are in deployment, so of which are covered below….

Three select Planned/In Deployment WIMAX networks of PERU

Megacom Comunicaciones and Q_TEL — http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-160032540.html

Websky Peru

Telefonica Del Peru -http://www.telefonica.com.pe/acercadetelefonica/pdf/02Entorno.pdf

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UPDATE 10 DEC 2009 from Moyez Kassam:

None of the operators mentioned in the links for Chile went beyond their pilot deployments. In fact one of them, Entel have formally announced intention to deploy LTE after having experienced a failure with their WiMAX pilot. The latest 2.3GHz license that was awarded earlier this year to a new operator (for whom I recently had completed a consultancy engagement) have put their plans to deploy on hold due to financial challenges.

In regards to Peru, as far as I know (having just returned from there), the only real deployment is the Navini one which, I understand has been deployed on a very small scale due to technical challenges. The others mentioned in the link do not exist. In fact one of the links is dated 2004 and they were going to deploy the next gen WiMAX?

Someone needs to check and update status of such announcements.

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If you have information about WiMAX deployments that differs from that reported by the WiMAX Forum, please post your remarks here.

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