Nolsen Bedon, Ltd.

I’ve been attending Computex in Taipei this week and of particular interest to me this year is the WiMAX Expo and the growth potential of this technology.

Taipei, Reuters

Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd. said it aims for 100 billion yen (US$951 million) in sales of its WiMAX-use microchips in the year starting April 2011, up from virtually none in the year ended March 31.

A new high-speed Internet technology, WiMAX provides wireless data over long distances, allowing faster Internet downloads while on the move. WiFi, by contrast, only works near a transmitter.

WiMAX services will be launched on a commercial basis as early as this year in Taiwan. In Japan, a group led by KDDI Corp. plans to start WiMAX operations next year.

Fujitsu expects its power-efficient communication chips to drive the company’s overall WiMAX chip sales, Makoto Awaga, general manager of Fujitsu’s microchip unit, told Reuters at COMPUTEX yesterday. COMPUTEX is the world’s second-biggest computer show.

Energy efficiency is critical for any electronic component that goes into a mobile device as users seek extended use on a single battery.

The WiMAX chip sales target of 100 billion yen is about 2 percent of Fujitsu’s total revenues in the year to March 2008 of 5.3 trillion yen.

Awaga said the number of WiMAX users globally is likely to reach up to 50 million by 2012.

I hope Awaga is referring to Japan. I believe that global adoption will be both quick and far reaching and we should see the number well surpass 50 million before 2012. Getting WiMAX adoption in just a few major metropolises in eastern China will easily push the number past a hundred million.

“By 2011 or 2012, certain progress should have been made on commercial operations, and various services will have become available,” Awaga said.

“Counting users in the United States, Japan, BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), Asia, and part of Europe, the number will probably be about 40 to 50 million.”

A source in Europe has told me that unfortunately mobile access to the Internet especially while roaming is still extremely expensive for Europeans.

Awaga said, despite expectations by some industry specialists, WiMAX may not be competing with another high-speed telecommunications technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE) to be the fourth-generation mobile phone standard of choice.

“Fourth-generation services will be an improvement of the current third-generation services in one form or another. Voice communications are an integral part the new services,” Awaga said.

“WiMAX, on the other hand, focuses on speedier transmissions of data, setting aside voice communications. It is possible to carry voice over WiMAX. But I’m not sure if it makes very much sense,” Awaga said.

Sachio Semmoto, founder of Japanese broadband Internet and wireless company eAccess Ltd, said in May LTE will beat WiMAX in the race for 4G wireless networks because many large operators are throwing their weight behind it.

Although WiMAX counts Intel Corp as a supporter, LTE got ahead in the race after Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, China Mobile and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, have rallied behind it.

Shares in Fujitsu were down 1.4 percent at 841 yen in afternoon trade, under-performing the Tokyo stock market’s electrical machinery index, which rose 1.1 percent.

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