The mobile version of WiMax wireless wide area networking technology (802.16-2005) will overtake the current fixed version (802.16-2004) by 2008, technology experts predicted today.

Analyst firm ABI Research believes that mobile WiMax will be here "sooner than many people think".

"ABI Research sees fixed WiMax sales hitting a peak in 2007 and then levelling off," said ABI principal analyst Alan Varghese.

"Mobile WiMax will start to see deployments in 2007, and the crossover point between the two will be late in 2008.

"Considering that it takes a year to design ASICs and then more time to design them into end-equipment, vendors up and down the value chain need to be discussing the required tradeoffs in their strategy meetings now."

Performance, power consumption and cost requirements for WiMax integrated circuits become much more challenging on the mobile platform, the ABI report stated.

WiMax integrated circuit companies such as Beceem Communications and Runcom would seem to be very well placed, according to the analyst, since they bypassed fixed WiMax and went straight to the mobile platform.

But they are being shadowed by companies such as Redpine Signals, RF Magic, Sequans, Sierra Monolithics, Telecis and Wavesat, which have honed their skills through deployments in fixed WiMax.

Competition will also come from giants such as Fujitsu and Intel which understand the mobile platform intimately all the way from RF to applications.