�ead to head technology battles are familiar territory
in the wireless industry. Even today, if you
listen carefully, you can still hear voices expounding
the technical benefits of CDMA over GSM. Never mind
that GSM (and its ‘family’ of standards) enjoys around
80 per cent of the world market, rendering the rallying
cry futile—competing technologies are lobbied for at
great expense and with considerable passion.
The great GSM/CDMA battle may have died out
now—not least because the GSM community’s evolutionary
process took it onto a variant of CDMA anyway—but
that doesn’t mean the industry has seen its
last technology tussle.
Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin was trying to motivate
both the operator and vendor community during
his speech at the 3GSM World Congress a year ago, when
he warned that LTE (The 3GPP’s Long Term Evolution
plan for cellular access) risked losing a time to market
battle with mobile WiMAX. “LTE is still at the standards
stage, while WiMAX is a commercial reality,” said Sarin.
Whatever his motivation, Sarin framed the situation in
competitive terms.
WiMAX has emerged as a fixed wireless solution but
the companies behind the technology—represented by
the WiMAX Forum—are keen to push the 802.16e mobile
version of the standard. Cellular players may have their
data demand covered with HSPA or EVDO (depending
on their location) for now. But the time will come when
some will have to upgrade to an OFDM technology, which
will involve a new network deployment. And then they
will be faced with options.
For every industry voice that talks up the face
off between technologies, though, there is usually a
counterpoint. These solutions are complementary, not
competitive, according to this alternative perspective.
And this is the first problem in trying to ascertain how
WiMAX and LTE might fare relative to one another:
not everybody wants to see the situation defined as
a choice between the two.
Kerl Haslam, chairman of the Mobile WiMAX Acceleration
Group—a UK collaboration founded by Nortel—sits
squarely in this category. “Everybody within the action
group’s view is that the two technologies are complementary,”
he says. Margaret Rice-Jones, chief executive
officer of Aircom is not alone, meanwhile, when she
says “yes and no” when asked if the two technologies
are in competition.
Steve Pusey, global CTO of Vodafone, which plays
in more markets than any other mobile operator, believes
the two technologies will ultimately converge.
“If you look at it, they’re basically the same,” he says.
“What’s the foundation of LTE and WiMAX? OFDM as
a modulation technique is the biggest step, and the use
of MIMO antennas. More likely than competition, you’ll
see convergence.”
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LTE v WiMAX COVER STORY
The two technologies do have separate conceptual
beginnings. LTE is designed to offer a cellular service
with greatly enhanced data rates, while WiMAX is a
broadband technology looking for an inroad to mobility.
It had to be conceived differently to LTE, according to
its proponents, because it needed its own USP.
The WiMAX Forum’s world view sees WiMAX as much
more than just a way for people to access the internet.
Intel’s vision is that there will be a WiMAX chip in all
manner of consumer devices: cameras, camcorders,
games consoles, mp3 players, cars, pretty much anything
one might think of. From this perspective, and
by comparison, LTE is anchored in the handset play
that has been the mobile industry’s historical sphere
of operation.
But the two technologies are destined for competition
in one sense because each is being positioned to move
into the other’s space. Just as it is hoped that WiMAX
can deliver enhanced mobility, LTE is envisioned as
a means of broadband access provision as well as a
mobile technology.
Paul Senior, CTO of Airspan Networks, was a founder
member of the WiMAX Forum, and still participates
as a member of the organisation’s Marketing Working
Group. While he says that Airspan will respond to market
demand in terms of technology, the firm is a big backer
of WiMAX technology. “This is definitely a competitive
technology to LTE,” he says.”
What WiMAX clearly is not, however, is a competitor
to HSPA. One of its proponents’ favoured campaign cries
is that it has a time to market advantage over LTE. But
even the evangelists concede that there’s no turning the
head of the GSM-family players just yet. “Everybody
that jumped on the [WCDMA] 3G bandwagon has HSPA
in front of them,” says Senior. “They’ve made too much
investment to make the switch from CDMA in 2008.”
So, what is the timeframe? The WiMAX community
suffered a blow last year when its flagship deployment—planned
as a joint effort by US carriers Sprint and
Clearwire—stalled when the two firms parted company.
Gary Forsee, Sprint’s CEO and a major champion of the
firm’s plans for Xohm, its mobile WiMAX offering, left
the company in the wake of these developments. What
was supposed to have been the whole community’s
triumphal moment of 2007 was put on hold.
This year will therefore be crucial for the WiMAX camp.
Both Sprint and Clearwire have indicated they are keen
to continue developing services based on the technology
and the success of Sprint in particular will be scrutinised
as a bellwether. Sprint recently claimed it was on track to
launch commercial services in April this year.
Elsewhere, the Forum estimates that some 300 operators
in 65 countries have run—or are running—pilots and
trials of mobile WiMAX. As 2007 drew to a close, a consortium
led by carrier KDDI won one of two Japanese »
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