CaribServe, a wireless broadband service provider based on the island of St Maarten in the northeastern Caribbean, expects it could reach some 10,000 subscribers for its fixed wireless service based on Motorola's (NYSE: MOT) WiMax technology, CaribServe's CEO Roy Richardson told BNamericas.
The company announced this week it has signed a two-year agreement with Motorola for WiMax infrastructure, devices and services to upgrade and replace the company's fixed wireless broadband service that has been based on Motorola's Canopy solution.
Richardson said CaribServe currently has 7,000-8,000 customers for the Canopy service. The island has a total population of some 150,000.
CaribServe will launch service by August this year in the 3.5GHz band on the Dutch side of the island, where the company has 65% of its subscriber base, the executive said, with service to follow in 2011 for the French side of the island.
Richardson said the decision to implement WiMax was based on the maturity of the older point-to-multi-point technology and because of the increasing bandwidth needs of CaribServe's customers. The company will initially offer speeds of 2Mbps downlink.
The executive said the company's goal is to penetrate not only new households, but have several connections per household.
"Internet is becoming more of a personal commodity for people, meaning that it's just like a cell phone, they want to have their own and they don't want to necessarily share a connection with somebody else in the household who is downloading large files, etc, that disrupts their service," he added.
LTE ON THE HORIZON, MOBILE WIMAX NOT YET
While the technology CaribServe has selected is capable of providing mobile WiMax, the company is currently not initially going to offer that service as it fears cannibalization of its existing 3G offering. So service will be of a nomadic nature.
That is not to say that mobile WiMax will not be offered at a later stage, Richardson said.
And while many operators around the world are debating whether to opt for WiMax or LTE, CaribServe is planning on having both. It is using WiMax as a fixed mobile internet offering and will also go down the LTE route to evolve its 3G network.
"I think the two will complement each other greatly. At some point in time down the road when LTE matures, then I expect there will be some kind of convergence between the two. The underlying technologies are far too similar right now but at some point in time, somebody is going to have to throw in half a white towel and come together," Richardson said.
"We don't see WiMax as a stop gap technology right now. We think it will be moving forward… and for our true mobile customers we will roll out LTE when that time comes throughout our market region," Richardson said.
CaribServe also selected Motorola's NBBS remote device management software platform to manage the customer premises equipment.
CaribServe is a subsidiary of United Telecommunication Service (UTS) that also has operations in Curacao, Bonaire, St Eustatius, Saba, St Kitts & Nevis, Suriname and in Holland through an MVNO.
The company announced this week it has signed a two-year agreement with Motorola for WiMax infrastructure, devices and services to upgrade and replace the company's fixed wireless broadband service that has been based on Motorola's Canopy solution.
Richardson said CaribServe currently has 7,000-8,000 customers for the Canopy service. The island has a total population of some 150,000.
CaribServe will launch service by August this year in the 3.5GHz band on the Dutch side of the island, where the company has 65% of its subscriber base, the executive said, with service to follow in 2011 for the French side of the island.
Richardson said the decision to implement WiMax was based on the maturity of the older point-to-multi-point technology and because of the increasing bandwidth needs of CaribServe's customers. The company will initially offer speeds of 2Mbps downlink.
The executive said the company's goal is to penetrate not only new households, but have several connections per household.
"Internet is becoming more of a personal commodity for people, meaning that it's just like a cell phone, they want to have their own and they don't want to necessarily share a connection with somebody else in the household who is downloading large files, etc, that disrupts their service," he added.
LTE ON THE HORIZON, MOBILE WIMAX NOT YET
While the technology CaribServe has selected is capable of providing mobile WiMax, the company is currently not initially going to offer that service as it fears cannibalization of its existing 3G offering. So service will be of a nomadic nature.
That is not to say that mobile WiMax will not be offered at a later stage, Richardson said.
And while many operators around the world are debating whether to opt for WiMax or LTE, CaribServe is planning on having both. It is using WiMax as a fixed mobile internet offering and will also go down the LTE route to evolve its 3G network.
"I think the two will complement each other greatly. At some point in time down the road when LTE matures, then I expect there will be some kind of convergence between the two. The underlying technologies are far too similar right now but at some point in time, somebody is going to have to throw in half a white towel and come together," Richardson said.
"We don't see WiMax as a stop gap technology right now. We think it will be moving forward… and for our true mobile customers we will roll out LTE when that time comes throughout our market region," Richardson said.
CaribServe also selected Motorola's NBBS remote device management software platform to manage the customer premises equipment.
CaribServe is a subsidiary of United Telecommunication Service (UTS) that also has operations in Curacao, Bonaire, St Eustatius, Saba, St Kitts & Nevis, Suriname and in Holland through an MVNO.
