WiMAX Growth Set To Fill The Need For Speed

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And the total market for WiMAX services in Australia is estimated to grow to $AUD123.6 million by 2012.

And according to SMB WiMAX vendor BigAir, the growth of WiMAX-enabled portable devices and PVR technology will push the growth of WiMAX technology from a zero base to astronomical figures.

Intel for example is offering WiMAX connectivity as an option on its new platform, and although this is not expected to see this until 2009, when the company assumes that WiMax will become a widespread solution.

Jason Ashton, CEO of BigAir notes that his company is targeting the SMB sector- from 10 to 500 employees, and those that are currently using ADSL broadband.

"Fixed WiMAX is a broadband replacement technology, one where we have seen 70 per cent growth in the past year alone".
"Our biggest growth is coming from the likes graphic designers, advertising agencies and photographers who need fast speeds and large download caps for the transferring of large size digital files- basically a situation where ADSL just doesn't cut it".

This is because that although WiMAX download speeds are about same as ADSL2+, the upload speeds is where the main differences lie with theoretical speeds of 1 Gb being quoted.

Also the education sector one is where WiMAX is having an impact as Ashton points out, "where you need P2P and a large pipe for a significant number of people to simultaneously download and share large files".