'The impact from fixed-wireless access?' he mused, addressing the more 200 industry representatives at the conference, the first of its kind in Hong Kong. 'I think everybody is still exploring what 3G can offer to the industry,' he said, barely containing his sarcasm and immediately turning a silent room into one full of laughter.

Mr Seeto does have a point. First, the various WiMax backers have yet to agree on a technology standard. After that, vendors must work up a business case to justify the cost.

History is full of hyped technologies that ultimately failed to prove their worth. Remember LMDS?

Short for local multipoint distribution system, the last-mile solution promised to deliver data services to as many as 80,000 customers from a single node, through line-of-sight coverage over distances of up to 5km.

Data downloads were advertised at about 38 Mbps.

In 2000, there were five LMDS licence holders, but now only Hong Kong Broadband remains in the business.

But do not tell that to the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (Ofta), which disagreed with suggestions that LMDS was a bust.

'I wouldn't say it is a complete failure. One company is still using it and looking at that company, LMDS has become very successful today,' Ofta assistant director Ha Yung-kuen said, referring to HKBN.

Mr Ha might want to consult HKBN chairman Ricky Wong Wai-kay before drawing that conclusion.

During the company's full-year results announcement last year, HKBN said it would migrate its remaining LMDS customers to its fibre backbone, saying technological constraints were preventing it from offering higher speed broadband services.

Will WiMax follow?

Stay tuned.