With 173,000 WiMax subscribers using Clearwire in the United States we represent only a small portion of worldwide numbers. According to a report from ABI Research, worldwide WiMax subscribers is expected to hit 2 million users before the end of 2009. Yota in Russia has been growing at a decent rate reaching 100,000 subscribers in August and 200,000 in October, and PacketOne in Malaysia has reached 130,000 subscribers, according to ABI Research.
UQ Communications once expected to reach 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2009, but is behind schedule in its rollout and will fall short of that initial target. South Korea has seen KT’s and SKT’s subscriber numbers remain fairly stagnant, while these service providers prepare for another big push as a third WiMAX service provider comes to South Korea.
Despite some setbacks in the mass adoption of WiMax, the 4G service has clearly established itself as the leader ahead of LTE. The next year will be a proving ground for LTE and whether it can quickly and effectively deploy services worldwide to surpass WiMax subscriber counts.
[via DigiTimes]
