WiMAX Forum: 10M WiMAX subscribers worldwide

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.--XJ Wang, marketing director for the WiMAX Forum, said there are now 540 WiMAX network deployments in 146 countries around the world--and more than 150 deployments in the Americas alone--an update intended to show the technology's progress to attendees of the WiMAX Forum Americas 2009 conference here.

wimax deployment mapAlthough many of the WiMAX networks are greenfield, such as the Clearwire WiMAX network in the U.S., Wang said 95 WiMAX operators also have cellular networks. "There are GSM operators such as Digicel that operate a WiMAX network too," Wang noted. "WiMAX contributes to the bottom line."

On the subscriber front, Wang said there are now about 10 million WiMAX subscribers worldwide, indicating that the technology is moving from niche to mass market.  In addition, he said that there are 165 WiMAX Forum certified products available.

Many of those WiMAX products likely are running on chips from Beceem. The WiMAX chipmaker said it is on track to sell 3 million WiMAX chips in 2009. The company also today launched  "4G Turbo" technology, which it said improves the uplink performance of its WiMAX chips.

For more:
- see this press release

Related Articles:
Femto Forum and WiMAX Forum to co-operate on specs
Verizon defends LTE at WiMAX confab
Clearwire CEO promises WiMAX handsets by Christmas 2010
Clearwire raises an additional $920M in financing