Although WiMAX has universal appeal, as it creates ubiquitous broadband connectivity, the key drivers for the deploying WiMAX in emerging and developed markets differ.

Over the last few years, WiMAX has gained a strong foothold in developing markets, where there is a latent demand for broadband, but poor infrastructure. In emerging markets, businesses are often forced to subscribe to expensive leased lines or satellite links while residential users typically pay high fees for a much less efficient DSL or cable modem service. In such environments, WiMAX provides a cost-effective alternative to wired technologies that is faster to deploy and to maintain.

The impact of WiMAX in extending broadband availability for residential and business users is substantially higher in developing markets than in developed ones, where broadband access is already available to most households and businesses. In this instance, WiMAX is not used for broadband connectivity, but rather personal services or mobile needs.

Whether WiMAX solutions are being used in emerging or developed markets, the future seems promising. WiMAX is expected to be integrated into the next generation mass-market consumer devices with speeds similar to cable and metropolitan area coverage while on the move, at a much lower price point.

Telecom infrastructure and service providers in Africa are faced with unique, regional challenges. Unlike their more developed counterparts, East Africa and West Africa have numerous socioeconomic and geopolitical barriers that have undoubtedly affected the adoption of communication services.

Several months ago, East Africa had no cable capacity. While IP capacity and connectivity has since grown tremendously via the SEACOM build out, a 17,000 km cable system supporting 1.28 Tbps of capacity, the challenge of distributing the capacity, from the cable landing station to end-users, specifically those located outside of major cities, has emerged.

Along those lines, Africa is geographically distant from the rest of the world; therefore, making the cost to deploy capacity more expensive than North America or Europe for example.

Regulatory issues and government influence/control over the telecommunication market, also pose a challenge on the continent. In Kenya, for example, while the government is promoting connectivity and supporting the use of the Internet, efforts to make these services affordable and available to the masses have had little success.

Despite the global economic downturn, Africa remains one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets. As an emerging economy, Africa is increasingly becoming the focus of investors who see a huge potential in this market.

Africa has the fastest growing telecommunications industry. But what is driving this growth? A primary driver is undersea cable build outs.

When it comes to cost, cable capacity is significantly cheaper than satellite. This regional growth is also fueled by the demand for high-speed, low latency connectivity. While satellite connections have an average of 600 millisecond delay, cable capacity delivers voice and data communications in less than half the time.

The inherent negative aspects of satellite communications fueled the launch of the SEACOM cable system, the first undersea submarine cable system that connects the African continent to Europe, Asia and India. Through this build out, Tata Communications is able to cost-effectively and efficiently provide fully integrated network services from South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya to its networks in Europe, Asia and India.

The abundance of capacity leads to the creation of a whole new industry for high-speed connectivity from call centers to growing the Internet. To that end, from August 2009 to now, Tata Communications has doubled the entire IP connectivity in Kenya, going from #3 in terms of connectivity to the #1 position.

Parts of Africa already have many attractive elements in place, including an underemployed workforce, good language skills, low labor costs and good time zone locations with European- and Middle Eastern-based companies, which could be harnessed through the proliferation of more connectivity to the rest of the world to support Call Centre, software development, and other similar services.

When planning a migration strategy from TDM to IP, it’s important to note that service providers migrate for different reasons. Some are migrating as part of a strategy to replace TDM with IP across the board. Others are planning to grow interconnects using IP rather than TDM, but are not looking to close down or stop using existing TDM networks. Because of these different paths, timelines across the industry for migration are not very well defined.

In some regions, operators are still building out their networks using TDM technology. For providers that are on a strong growth path, increasing coverage provides a better return on investment than the optimization, decreased costs and additional services enabled by IP.

Migration will be a long-term exercise – we at Tata Communications expect we’ll still serve some customers on TDM for years to come.

-Claus N., Marketing

In discussions at PTC, carriers who had already begun their rollout of a next-generation IP network expressed their commitment to seeing the transition through, even in the face of difficult market conditions, while carriers who were in earlier stages of the process were re-evaluating, delaying, or even scrapping rollout plans.

For the international carriers who were backing off of their IP rollout plans, new strategies showed some interesting regional differences. In developed markets, these players were looking for partnerships that would allow them to outsource their international business operations to an IP-enabled player, and redirect focus toward customer acquisition and care, as well as maximizing the value of on-net terminations.

In emerging markets, however, many international players have a mandate to stay in the international voice space for business or even policy reasons. These players expressed intentions to continue to run their operations within the TDM environment as long as possible, or until the capital environment improved.

Since more of the IP first movers are concentrated in mature markets, if carriers execute as they are now discussing, the result may be significant regional differences in the patterns of IP and TDM voice traffic.