Europe still needs a big deployment similar to Sprint Nextel and Clearwire in the US, it seems. That could well be under way since BT is planning, through WiMAX, to come back as a wireless service provider in 2008. And they have been running trials for many months with a range of vendors, some of whom have not yet been mentioned by the "smart" press. Whoever wins that deal will be in business, although WiMAX is still a buyer's market at present.

The WiMAX World Europe event in Vienna had not much that was new. Motorola, Nortel and Alcatel-Lucent seem to be investing the most, at least among the big vendors, judging from the amount of people that they had at their booths. They were joined by Nokia Siemens this time. Best live demo was given by another vendor, though. SR Telecom from Canada showed how their QoS works when the network is congested. They loaded a link with a Smartbits box and ran video streaming, showing how it can influence the viewing experience for the end users. Nice demo and one that attracted the most service providers, since they felt like they were at home in their own labs. To me the best product marketing job at that show.