Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Melissa Robison

Research firm Frost & Sullivan today stated that if commercial mobile WiMax rollouts don't happen by the end of this year, "the market scope for mobile WiMax on a global basis will be insignificant" - and what's more, "the technology is facing a range of challenges that are likely to make it unfeasible as a mobile access technology."

"However, this does not mean that all the investment that has gone into mobile WiMax will have been for nought," the firm states. "Frost & Sullivan believes that the work carried out on mobile WiMax has the potential to spur new ventures, which could potentially lead mobile WiMax to merge with 3G LTE."

"Recent events have been unfavourable toward mobile WiMax," says Frost & Sullivan's Luke Thomas. "For example, Sprint-Nextel recently announced a delay to the commercial rollout of its mobile WiMax service, Xohm, and has now stated that the first commercial service of Xohm will be in Baltimore in September 2008 followed by Washington, D.C. and Chicago by Q4 2008 (provided the new WiMax venture ClearWire deal closes by Q4 2008)."

More here from EETimes ... more here from EDN ... more here from TMCnet ... more here from I4U News ... and the press release is here.