Synopsis
Archived report: this report was archived in December 2010 and has not been updated.
The fixed wireless broadband market continues to witness strong growth in the US. WiFi has been widely taken up in US workplaces and broadband households and WiFi hotspots continued to open across the country, becoming commonplace in airports, hotels, cafes and office buildings. The US has the largest number of hotspots in the world, with the number of free hotspots estimated to increase by 15% during 2010. The growth in WiFi-enabled handsets underpinned this growth and reinvigorated the municipal WiFi sector.
Although several high profile municipal WiFi projects experienced difficulties during 2008, the number of cities and towns with WiFi networks continued to grow during 2009 and 2010. WiMAX also enjoyed positive developments in 2009/10, with the Sprint 4G service on Clearwire’s WiMAX network expected to be available to 120 million by the end of 2010. Although Sprint’s WiMAX offering was enjoying the first mover position in 4G networks, it was expected to face strong competition from 2011 onwards by the LTE networks to be deployed by Verizon and AT&T.
This report provides details of the main fixed wireless broadband developments in the US as at 2010, including WiFi, WiMAX and satellite broadband.
