OverSeas WiMax Roundup #4

Here’s a snapshot of the overseas action on the WiMax front:

Hong Kong

KOWLOON. The Office of the Telecommunications Authority (“OFTA”) announced yesterday that it will accelerate the auction of 2.5 GHz spectrum to the fourth quarter of 2008, allowing for the introduction of WiMAX services to Hong Kong and its 426 square mile territory.

Previously OFTA had said that the 2.5 GHz frequency band would not be auctioned until 2009 or 2010. The 2.5 GHz auction now will be combined with an auction of 2.3 GHz spectrum for Broadband Wireless Access Services (BWA), which already had been planned for Q4 2008.

The impetus for accelerating the auction of 2.5 GHz spectrum is that the World Radio Conference admitted WiMAX into the IMT family of technologies last month. A spokesman at OFTA said “we decided it was time to end the debate and offer this spectrum for WiMAX.”

UK

We have an insatiable appetite for information, in all its guises. Whether for business or personal, commercial or recreational, does not really matter. What matters is its availability. It seems we want to be able to access everything, at any time, from any place.

Which means there is an increased need to provide high bandwidths to mobile subscribers - and to do it wirelessly.

Italy

The government plans to auction 35 licenses for WiMAX, a super-fast wireless broadband that can reach areas not connected by traditional broadband networks.
Analysts said earlier this year they expected the sale of the Italian licenses to generate between 100 million euros ($146.6 million) and 200 million euros for the Italian state, far below the billions gained from the sale of 3G mobile phone licenses at the peak of the high-tech boom.
WiMAX, short for wireless interoperability for microwave access, is a medium-range sibling of the popular Wi-Fi technology. It can be beamed over kilometers rather than meters.

Middle East

‘We believe this technology will be very attractive to operators in the region since it will allow them to un-tap portions of the market that so far have not been served because their business case was not profitable,’ comments Federico Membrillera, Partner at Delta Partners.

‘In addition, Wimax will bring new competitors to the fixed line space and will unlock nothing less than a true broadband revolution. It will put the Middle East right up there with western markets - in a same way as it happened with mobile telephony.’

India

People in rural Bangladesh work their land from dawn till dusk and women devote themselves to household chores. It is plain lifestyle, away from the daily hubbub of city life. This bucolic simplicity, however, does not exclude the residents from their right to know.

ICT helps villagers access the information they need. Information important to them is disseminated from a place commonly known as telecentre. Several organisations, including GrameenPhone, have already implemented telecentres in some parts of the country.

Now all of them are unified under an umbrella organisation called Bangladesh Telecentre Network (BTN) to strengthen their capacity as well as speed up the process to incorporate ICT in rural life.

India

VSNL has finally decided to ring up global markets and has charted out plans to enter into 20 new countries in Europe, Africa and Asia over the next one year.

The company will be spending almost half of its $500 million capex on the international business.

But the company is also on the prowl looking actively for an acquisition target in the technology space and is willing to spend upto half a billion dollars for it.

Canada

OTTAWA, ONTARIO–(Marketwire - Dec. 6, 2007) - Wi-LAN Inc. (TSX:WIN) (”Wi-LAN”), a leading technology licensing company, today announced that it has signed a license for Canadian Patent No. 2,179,474 with Acer Incorporated of Taiwan. The license contemplates the payment of a running royalty for the life of the patent through 2016, and includes provision for payment of past sales in Canada.

Ranked as the world’s No. 4 branded PC vendor, Acer focuses on globally marketing its brand-name products: mobile and desktop PCs, servers and storage, LCD monitors and high-definition TVs, projectors, and handheld/navigational devices. Established in 1976, Acer Inc. employs 5,300 people supporting dealers and distributors in more than 100 countries. Revenues in 2006 reached US$11.32 billion.

WiMax on the Move.