There are definite downside risks to deploying immediately with precursor gear. However, they appear manageable.

Some risks include the possibility that the precursor gear selected will not be seamlessly interoperable with new WiMAX gear. This is a downside consideration, but perhaps the most manageable. WiMAX and other precursor WiMAX gear can be bridged with a simple Ethernet link allowing a simple expansion of the next site as a WiMAX site, while the company continues to operate and expand the existing precursor network as before. Upgrades to WiMAX could then be made to the precursor sites as economic factors dictate.

Some precursor gear may have slightly lower performance characteristics. Most vendors’ precursor gear should carry virtually identical functionality to WiMAX CERTIFIED™ products, rendering this a very low-level risk.

Precursor radios could potentially be more expensive. This is probably the least likely scenario as radio costs even before WiMAX have dropped steadily over recent years.

Downside risks are very minimal for current deployment.