Energy costs represent the third most significant operating expense (OpEx) item for cellular carriers today, and fluctuating energy costs are a significant area of concern for business planners according to ABI Research. The company says that introduction of mobile broadband to the equation means that the energy required per subscriber arising from increasing data uptake will push per-subscriber energy OpEx for cellular solutions past acceptable barriers - unless carriers move from a traditional cellular-only approach to one that integrates WiMAX and metro Wi-Fi.

“From a pure coverage perspective WiMAX is twice as energy-cost-effective and metro Wi-Fi is 50 times more energy-cost-effective than WCDMA,” comments ABI director of wireless research Stuart Carlaw. “When data traffic is factored into the equation, WiMAX can accommodate 11 times today's average data consumption and still be more energy-cost-efficient compared to WCDMA or HSDPA.”

A recent ABI Research study found that the total energy consumption arising from mobile broadband service delivery is forecast to grow from 42.8 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2005 to 124.4 billion kWh in 2011. The Asia Pacific region will account for the majority of this growth.

And in other WiMAX news, Finland’s Nokia has been named, along with the original trio of Intel, Motorola and Samsung (click), as a supplier of equipment to the US$3bn WiMAX network planned by Sprint Nextel. Which seems to leave Nortel, the company that last month exited the 3G market to concentrate on WiMAX (click), out in the cold.
John Williamson