Europe : The two fastest growing markets in the history of telecommunications; mobile telephony and fixed broadband access, are happening right now. The opportunity for bringing mobility and broadband access together has never been grater. Wireless Broadband technologies will make a dramatic comeback from the unsuccessful attempts to use them to offer broadband services in 1999 and 2000.

This report defines Wireless Broadband as a wireless service that provides at lease 384kbps in downstream direction and with specifications and pricing intended to compete with DSL and other wireline broadband technologies. While this definition includes 3G technologies that are at the low end, WiMAX services at 1 Mbps downstream will provide the performance that this market is really looking for.

Several important things have changed to give Wireless Broadband a second look:

- Technical advances such as OFDM have extended the range of wireless technologies and improved their abilities to bypass and penetrate into structures with non-line-of-sight propagation. The worlds television broadcasters have already implemented digital terrestrial services based on OFDM and proved its effectiveness. OFDM is also used in the wireless LAN standard IEEE 802.1 1a.

- The IEEE802.16 and ETSI Hyperlan committees have developed wireless standards that apply to broadband applications and are currently extended these standards to give them a degree of mobility.

- The WiMAX Forum has been formed to insure interoperability of IEEE802.16 implementations by creating implementation profiles and will be certifying to them, following the successful example of WiFi Forum.

- Major companies including Intel and Proxim have endorsed WiMAX and are promising components that can be used to build low cost systems.

- The 3GPP groups IP Multimedia Subsystem(IMS), which uses SIP for signaling, is available not only for converging fixed and mobile networks but may be used by incumbent and new service providers alike for IP based Broadband Wireless networks.

The WiMAX forum is focusing on point-to-multipoint technologies using a spectrum of 2 to 11GHz. The point-to-multipoint technology permit the service provider to offer service to anybody within the covered area. At 10GHz and below, rain fading is not a significant issue, so the radius served is larger than with higher frequencies and can extend to the horizon if the transmit is high enough.

It is expected that WiMAX technology will capture a significant share of Wireless Broadband market and will attract a large number of subscribers who will use WiMAX in place of DSL or some other wireline broadband service. On the other hand 3G will attract users who are primarily interested in mobility. Most subscribers will use 3G to supplement rather replace a wireline broadband service.

Topics covered in the report include:

- Wireless Standards, Spectrum, and Regulatory Landscape - Trials, Early Network Deployments and the Lessons - Business Case Examples - Market Forecasts - Conclusions & Recommendations

Companies profiled:

- iPass - UK Broadband - Verizon Wireless - Alvarion - Aperto Networks - BeamReach Networks - Navini Networks - Redline Communications - SR Telecom - ArrayComm - DragonWave Inc. - Flarion - IPWireless - Motorola - Orthogon Systems - UTSarcom - Alcatel - Lucent Technologies - Nokia - Nortel Networks - Airspan Networks - Proxim - Vyyo Inc. - ZTE Corporation - AMF Ventures - Cutting The Wires - Intel