TOKYO (WiMAX Day). Last year, the Japanese company eAccess fought feverishly to obtain a license for WiMAX spectrum. As a founding shareholder in the OpenWin consortium with Softbank and Goldman Sachs, eAccess planned to build an extensive WiMAX network.

In the official bid documents submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), OpenWin stated that it had “adopted an international standard technology, WiMAX.”  However, in the end, the consortium was not successful in its effort to obtain a license for WiMAX, losing out to WillCom and KDDI/Intel.

Thus it came as a great surprise to many yesterday when Sachio Semmoto, the Chairman of eAccess, said that Long Term Evolution (a technology that is yet to be proven or standardised) will outperform WiMAX.

Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Tokyo, Semmoto said “Unfortunately for the sake of the WiMAX camp… they will become minorities.”

This statement was a startling contrast to Semmoto’s cheerleader pose while bidding for WiMAX spectrum last year, when at a press conference he announced that “We have a strong will to be licensed mobile WiMAX.”

Indeed, another unbashful announcement from eAccess last year stated that the company had “successfully tested mobile WiMAX in partnership with Matsushita Electric Works Ltd, which achieved high-speed data transmission surpassing 3G mobile service.”

A fickle fellow, or a poor loser?

Described as a serial entrepreneur with 35 years experience, Semmoto is no debutante in the game of rival telecom technologies. What is surprising is that his apostasy should arrive so shortly after committing USD 200 million to WiMAX.

What is clear from the statement made by Semmoto yesterday is that radio spectrum defines the business model for wireless broadband. Softbank itself said last year that “Gaining access to the [WiMAX] spectrum licenses is crucial.”

Likewise, when eAccess thought that a WiMAX spectrum license was within its grasp, the company announced that it would “strongly promote WiMAX technology in Japan, and to contribute to the standardization process in the [WiMAX Forum].”

eAccess was banking on WiMAX for its future. The company had developed a business model that would fully integrate WiMAX into its existing broadband services. The company asserted that it would “develop new markets instead of using WiMAX for 3G overlay,” and that WiMAX would help eAccess to “break the wall between fixed and mobile broadband access.”

If eAccess had been awarded a WiMAX license in December 2007, today it would be building a WiMAX network. Now lacking a license for WiMAX spectrum, and the daunting threat of competition from KDDI’s massive WiMAX network, eAccess has no choice but to bet on a new technology and hope for the availability of new frequencies.