$40 WiMAX Handset

$40 WiMAX Handset?

Posted by Sam Churchill on December 8th, 2008

UJet Holding, a privately held company based in the Netherlands, is planning the launch of low-cost WiMAX voice/data handsets for emerging markets next year. In volumes over 500,000, it projects prices of $40 per handset.

Working in partnership with a consortium of operators, as well as chipset manufacturers - the names of which are undisclosed - the company is projecting low prices for WiMAX-enabled handsets capable of voice and data speeds of up to 6Mbps on the downlink.

“We can start off with prices at $70 per unit, which then goes down to $40 once volumes pass 500,000,” Paul Coerkamp, CEO of UJet Holding, told WiMAX Vision at the WiMAX Congress event taking place in Rio lastweek.

Coerkamp would like to see convergence of WiMAX and LTE, which would presumably boost economies of scale for UJet. “Convergence is not that difficult to do at the baseband level,” claims Coerkamp. “The problem is how to accommodate different frequencies if LTE focuses on different spectrum to WiMAX.”

It is not clear what the business model for UJet is and how it intends to make its money. Visitors to its website are confronted with the following when clicking on the ’strategy’ section: ‘Access is available for selected investors after signing a mutual NDA.

source: dailywireless.org