BOSTON -- When well-known service providers Sprint and WorldCom purchased billions of dollars worth of MMDS spectrum licenses, and vendors such as Cisco, ADC, and BreezeCOM began developing products in this space, the entire fixed wireless arena quickly came under industry scrutiny, according to the recent Yankee Group Report, "MMDS Fixed Wireless Set to Become a Piece of the Broadband Puzzle." Lindsay Schroth, an analyst for the Yankee Group's E-Networks & Broadband Access research and consulting practice, and author of the Report, states, "In 2000, only 13 U.S. markets and approximately 20,000 subscribers were serviced over this frequency band. However, the Yankee Group does not believe that the slow evolution thus far reflects the future of MMDS broadband access." Schroth concludes, "In order for MMDS to reach the economies of scale of cable modem and DSL, service providers need to see several developments from equipment vendors": -- Systems must overcome the line-of-sight (LOS) restriction.
-- The price of customer premises equipment (CPE) must decrease.
-- CPE installation time and complexity must be reduced, and product road maps should include self-install capabilities.
-- An interoperable standard that allows for the use of multiple, seamlessly integrated best-in-class products must be established. The Yankee Group believes that after the long-awaited system enhancements come to fruition in 2002, the total subscriber count will grow to an estimated 887,600 in 2006. The Yankee Group