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According to Frost & Sullivan, unless spectrum auctions and commercial mobile WiMax rollouts (compliant to Wave 2 Phase 2 certification) gather momentum before the end of this year, the market scope for the broadband wireless technology "will be insignificant."

The researchers also suggest the technology is facing a range of challenges that are likely to make it unfeasible as a mobile "access" technology.

However, they sugar this bleak analysis by noting that the huge investment that has gone into mobile WiMax may not have been for nought. Frost & Sullivan believes that the work carried out on Mobile WiMax has the potential to spur new ventures, which could potentially lead Mobile WiMax to merge with 3G LTE.

"Recent events have been unfavourable toward Mobile WiMax," noted Frost & Sullivan Program Manager Luke Thomas. "For example, Sprint-Nextel recently announced a delay to the commercial roll-out of its Mobile WiMax service, Xohm, and has now stated that the first commercial service of Xohm will be in Baltimore in September 2008 followed by Washington DC and Chicago by Q4 2008 (provided the new WiMAX venture 'ClearWire' deal closes by Q4 2008)."