A pilot of a fixed wireless broadband service based on WiMAX technology will connect 250 businesses in central London to the internet next month, with rollouts to nine other UK cities planned for 2007 if everything goes to plan. Analysts estimate that the number of global service providers deploying WiMAX networks will more than double by 2007.

Startup provider Urban WiMAX will use the 5.8GHz waveband and 802.16d equipment to deliver 10Mbit/s of symmetric bandwidth to trial customers located within 1-1.5Km of its initial base stations in Westminster. The idea is to provide enough capacity and quality of service (QoS) to support firms’ IP telephony and video streaming requirements.

Urban WiMAX CEO Sasha Williamson intends to drive customer growth by undercutting competing symmetric DSL and metro Ethernet services by up to 50%, whilst also delivering better contention ratios backed up by virtual private networks (VPNs) and service level agreements.

“BT is offering a 2Mbit/s SDSL service for about £400 a month, and Bulldog about £160. We are looking to offer services at least 50% below competitive prices, starting at around £120 a month initially, but aiming for £80-100.” he said.

A recent report from analyst firm Infonetics suggests that 22% of carriers and service providers worldwide have already deployed fixed WiMAX networks based on the 802.16d standard, with that figure set to rise to 50% by 2007. It concludes that use of both WiMAX and third generation (3G) wireless links as backhaul solutions in telecommunications networks will grow dramatically by 2007, possibly indicating a general trend away from fixed-line solutions.

The Urban WiMAX service will use at least two fixed-line backbone providers from the base station to the carrier point of presence (POP) to make sure that customers never lose their link to the Internet if one goes down, however.

“We’ve had a lot of interest from financial institutions in the city who are not happy with their Ethernet over fibre connections. They are looking for independent service that doesn’t rely on a [single] carriers core backbone but has an alternative route out onto Internet.” he said CTO Dave Moore.

Urban WiMax sees no reason to roll out a mobile WiMAX service just yet, citing uncertainty over standards and a lack of demand for that type of service as barriers.

“Portable [WiMAX] networks are not currently in our plans; one needs to understand the next [802.16e] standard very well, and also see a demonstrable market demand for it. We don’t see that happening for the next couple of years.” added Moore.