Does WiMAX has a big future?

I have been writing on this blog about the growth of WiMax and have given lot of latest figures on no. of WiMAX users. But a recent major analytical study has concluded that, despite all the hype, the technology being marketed as WiMAX is going to be just a niche player in the mobile wireless market over the next half decade. I would like to hear your comments on this -
The latest study, by Arthur D. Little, compares High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and WiMAX, and concludes WiMax will capture "at most 15 percent of this network equipment market and perhaps 10 percent of mobile broadband wireless subscribers by 2011-2012."
Other research houses including Strategy Analytics, which recently estimated that WiMAX would win at best 6 percent of the world market by 2010, also have similiar opinions. The findings of study are based on interviews with 31 HSPA and WiMax equipment vendors, operators running the networks, government regulators and financial investors around the globe.
"The momentum in HSDPA deployments has been stimulated by competition from other broadband wireless technologies and by the prospect of competition from mobile WiMax," says Michael Natusch, head of Arthur D. Little's UK TIME (Telecoms, IT, Media and Electronics) practice. "However, there is as yet no convincing real-world evidence of the actual relative performances of these technologies in large scale deployments. Nevertheless, it is likely that these two technologies will achieve comparable levels of performance in typical real-world situations, contrary to the notion that mobile WiMax should be regarded as a 'killer' technology."
In mobile WiMAX's favor, Little in its study does note that "WiMax systems are expected to achieve significantly greater theoretical peak data transfer rates when deployed than today's commercial HSPA networks deliver now." It cites thoretical speeds of 16.8 Mb/s in urban areas compared to 2-3 Mb/s for HSPA. A bigger issue, though, it says is that "the coverage a WiMax base station can achieve, is substantially lower than HSPA, hence HSPA operators will be able to deploy a smaller number of base stations and sites to cover the same geography." The result is that "radio access network Capex for current WiMax technology can significantly exceed HSDPA capex."
That issue may be a WiMAX-killer, because "an HSPA operator will be able to match its growing investment more clearly to the development of demand than mobile WiMax operators who will have to install more cell sites at the beginning to ensure coverage."
Looking further out into the future, and the battle between Mobile WiMAX advocates the HSPA community and its 3G LTE, Little isn't making any solid predictions. "The long term future relative roles of 3G LTE and mobile WiMax, both of which face major development hurdles before they achieve the full promise of new, so-called 4G systems, is uncertain and will be influenced by continuing expected shifts in the priorities and competitive alignments of major players in the wireless industry which has undergone a number of consolidations in recent months," Little concludes.

Source - Telecomweb