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MeneameAfter a slow 2009, Israeli WiMax equipment supplier Alvarion (Nasdaq: ALVR) has seen an increase in demand in Latin America during the last quarter for WiMax projects with governments and operators, Alvarion's marketing VP Ashish Sharma told BNamericas.
"The operators' budget was tight last year but we're working on many vertical applications. In Brazil we see a lot of great business in the municipalities and local governments as there is a huge need for broadband," Sharma said.
"We're deploying a mix of solutions there on unlicensed bands and different frequencies... enabling different applications for education, health and local government. So I think that Latin America balances out. If the spending is not there from the operators then it comes from many other types of vertical applications," he said.
The year 2009 was difficult for Alvarion which saw revenues dip to US$245mn from US$281mn in 2008, as credit was tight and operators were being careful with their cash. Alvarion's Latin American operations slipped to 11% of total revenues in 1Q10 from 12% throughout 2009.
Mohammad Shakouri, corporate VP for strategy at Alvarion, told BNamericas in January that Latin America had been one of the slowest areas in getting traction in WiMax commercial deployments.
However, Sharma said that was because Latin America had been hit harder financially than many other areas in the world. He added that compared to regions like Africa and Asia, Latin America had a bigger installed base of fixed-line communications so the growth was never going to be as strong. In addition, Latin America was an early adopter of WiMax so there are already many networks up and running in the region.
"In most Latin American countries there are WiMax networks deployed; in Peru there are three. The only country where there is not commercial WiMax is Brazil [as licenses have not been awarded], there are private networks. Africa's growth is higher because there was very little copper and fiber," he said.
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