Can WiMAX save PCCW's mobile business? Dr Liang Wu certainly hopes so

Things are tough in Hong Kong, Asia's and perhaps the world's toughest telecoms market. And leading incumbent operator PCCW has seen its fixed line network market share drop from 95 percent to 70 percent in just 5 years. To turn the situation around the company is hoping that triple play of fixed, mobile and broadband will keep customers with them. But already the triple play strategy is being sorely tested. Why ? Because in a market like Hong Kong it is not enough to offer just voice on a mobile phone, where 2000 minutes of voice sells for just US$10. So PCCW is now offering its NOW IP TV services on the mobile network.

But there is a catch, explains Dr Liang Wu, Executive Vice President of Emerging Technology at PCCW. "The trouble is if you look deeper the mobile TV we have is MDMS - its beautiful but I can only provide 3 channels over 5 MHZ. That's just not cost effective. Video streaming can support 5 (in a cell) simultaneous users. HSDPA is fine but we are limited by the spectrum. So I need to find some way to make all these services robust and scalable."

"For mobile TV I heard WiMAX can do it but I cannot find any solution. So we are now testing with Motorola and that's fine. The streaming part I really need WiMax to work because I have people testing the services in the subway but 3G data in the subway drops to 100 kb and HSDPA drops to 1.2 Megs but for streaming in a small screen is not going to make a business. So I am really putting a high hope in WiMAX but WiMAX better do the video right."

Motorola's Ray Owen certainly thinks WiMAX offers an operator choice. "WiMax does not share the same spectrum as 3G so the question of whether you choose one technology over the other is a moot point," says Owen.

So is PCCW"s Dr Wu right? Will WiMAX enable new services that operators really need to keep customers? IS HSDPA just not cost effective for high usage of broadband data?

Tell us what you think.