BEIJING, May 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Plans for high-speed
wireless Internet will benefit Intel Corp. - an investor in the Sprint
Nextel-Clearwire WiMax venture - and analysts expect other chip makers to gain
from Intel's position and increased spending on similar networks.
Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. announced
earlier this month they would combine their wireless broadband units to form a
14.6 billion U.S. dollar communications company that would develop and market
high-speed mobile Internet service based on WiMax technology.
Intel - which invested in the project along with
several others - is slated to work with manufacturers to put WiMax chips in
laptops containing its Centrino 2 processors and other Intel-based mobile
Internet products. Intel and fellow investor Google Inc. also have options to
enter third-generation and fourth-generation wholesale agreements with Clearwire
and Sprint.
Jefferies & Co. analyst John Lau said Intel's
move to put WiMax chips into laptops is similar to what the company did in the
past to promote the spread of Wi-Fi technology.
"We believe that Intel will include WiMax
capabilities into their notebooks by the end of this year; this will spur demand
for WiMax," Lau said.
Lau thinks the company's efforts to promote
technologies like WiMax and Wi-Fi are intended to promote overall computing.
These efforts "are not material to their revenue or their earnings, but as a
technology enabler this will definitely impact their microprocessor sales," he
said.
American Technology Research analyst Doug Freedman
noted that wireless infrastructure installation requires a fair amount of analog
content in base station boxes, so growth of high-speed networks could increase
demand for chips from companies like Linear Technology Corp. and Texas
Instruments.
He also pointed to radio frequency chip makers like
Anadigics Inc., TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. and RF Micro Devices Inc. as
companies that would see rising demand for their products from such
infrastructure buildouts.
(Agencies)
