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Tuesday, 10 July 2007 |
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Two more 802.16e-2005 initiatives announced while Clearwire gets US$1bn in term financing…
Adding to the rapidly growing roster of worldwide mobile WiMAX initiatives, Synterra has announced plans to roll out a 1,000-city network in Russia in partnership with vendor Alcatel-Lucent, while the Vietnam DataCommunication Company (VDC) has said it will start a year-long trial of Motorola-supplied equipment starting off in Hanoi and moving in a second phase to Ho Chi Minh city. Over in the
USA, meantime, the IEEE 802.16e start-up Clearwire has secured US1bn in a further round of funding.
The Synterra project, using Alcatel-Lucent’s Universal WiMAX technology, has the goal of starting operations in Q4 2007 in designated towns and cities with average populations of 100,000. Synterra, which owns a nationwide Russian operating licence, intends to partner with regional telecoms operators in order to cover more than 1,000 Russian conurbations by end of 2008.
In
Vietnam the VDC subsidiary of the VNPT Group together with Motorola will deploy the latter’s wi4 WiMAX technology to test services such as voice over IP (VoIP). VDC is one of four operators in
Vietnam to receive Ministry of Post and Telematics (MPT) licences to pilot fixed WiMAX in Lao Cai province. In the future the MPT is expected to hold a competition for the award of mobile WiMAX licences that could be in the 2.3 to 2.5GHz spectrum. The criteria for that contest include deployment, timeline, investment and feasibility plans.
In the USA Clearwire, which announced the successful completion of the first phase of one of the country’s first mobile WiMAX field trials in May, has closed and funded its first tranche of a fully committed US$1bn senior secured term loan, the remainder of which will be funded on a delayed draw basis approximately 45 days from 05 July. The transaction was led by Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan and Citigroup. The proceeds will be used to refinance Clearwire’s existing debt and to expand the company’s operations. By refinancing its existing debt, virtually all of Clearwire’s debt is extended to a five year maturity.
And in other WiMAX news IMS Research’s latest report on the technology – ‘The Worldwide Market for WiMAX & Competing Products: 2007 Edition’ - forecasts that while IEEE 802.16d fixed WiMAX will dominate the subscriber base for at least the next two years, IEEE 802.16e will thereafter start to eat away at the older technology’s market dominance. By 2012, says IMS, only one in twenty WiMAX users will still be using 802.16d.
John Williamson |
