COVER STORY LTE v WiMAX
There is more consensus
around the chances that
WiMAX has for success
in emerging markets. In
these countries, fixed
infrastructure is often found
wanting and broadband
internet access is sorely
needed
50
2.5GHz licences and plans to operate mobile
WiMAX, launching in 2009. The other licence
went to PHS service provider Willcom, which
is planning a next generation PHS service.
Informa Telecoms & Media expects there to
be fewer than ten million WiMAX subscribers
(fixed wireless and mobile) globally by the end
of 2008, growing to 65.6 million in 2012. The
WiMAX Forum estimates that there will be
410,000 mobile WiMAX subscribers by the
end of this year.
Othmar Kyas, director of strategic marketing,
network diagnostics, at test and
measurement house Tektronix, provides more
information on the lead time that WiMAX
enjoys. “With LTE we are just in the phase
where proprietary demo systems are being
phased out and the first pre-commercial LTE
gear is being made ready for 3GSM this February.”
Kerl Haslam’s assessment is that mobile
WiMAX has a two-year lead on LTE.
A time to market advantage, though, is only
as good as what is done with it. One popular
assessment is that mobile operators that
evolved along the CDMA2000 route—and are
therefore unlikely to want to adopt a technology
from the GSM family—will represent a
prime market for WiMAX.
“These are the people who have a choice,”
says Airspan’s Paul Senior. “Almost all of those
players say that what they need is something
that does mobile broadband very well, and
that mobile WiMAX is the best for that,” he
adds. Clearly Sprint is one of those carriers.
KDDI and SK Telecom are others.
There is one glaring exception to Senior’s
trend, however. Verizon Wireless, the US carrier
CDMA jointly owned by Vodafone and Verizon,
last year committed publicly to LTE—a strategy
that will almost certainly see it make a
long awaited move into Vodafone’s technological
fold. This declaration was seen by some
as having taken the wind out of the WiMAX
Forum’s sales somewhat, after the coup of
landing Vodafone as a key member.
Othmar Kyas expects LTE and WiMAX to
split the market along similar lines to GSM
and CDMA, with an 80/20 divide in favour of
the 3GPP’s solution, indicating that he shares
Senior’s outlook for the CDMA camp.
Another means by which WiMAX might
become established is as a data add-on to
existing voice services. “Even in developed
countries there are relatively small numbers
of operators with UMTS licences,” says Kyas.
“There are a number of scenarios where two
or three operators are planning to acquire
inexpensive GSM licences for voice and build
a WiMAX network for data. UMTS licences
were sold for billions of dollars. The relatively
inexpensive WiMAX infrastructure in combination
with inexpensive GSM voice costs
might create a business case for a number
of operators out there.”
These are business models and concepts
that generate debate. There is more consensus
around the chances that WiMAX has for success
in emerging markets. In these countries,
fixed infrastructure is often found wanting
and broadband internet access is sorely
needed. “Where you’ve got a situation with
very little DSL penetration and you want to
provide a much more basic level of data connectivity,”
says Aircom’s Margaret Rice-Jones,
“then I think WiMAX is a technology that
can do very well. That is the early market for
WiMAX; nomadic rather than mobile.”
Non-GSM cellular players, a modular data
offering for mobile operators and nomadic
wireless broadband access in emerging
markets: the business models differ but the
overall purpose is the same. Each of these
options allows WiMAX to be seeded in the
market so that it can evolve technologically
and strategically to the point when GSM family
cellular carriers may begin to look at their
options for the fourth generation.
“That,” says Paul Senior, “is when we’re going
to see defection. Because WCDMA is pretty much
finished in a couple of years’ time in terms of its
roadmap. It will be out there forever, of course,
but in terms of what operators then install, the
choice is much more interesting.”
Not everybody would agree that the end of
the WCDMA line (including the HSPA upgrades)
is quite so imminent, however. “We’ve got a few
years’ of legs ahead of us,” says Vodafone’s Steve
Pusey. “I can sense peak speeds of 28.8Mbps
in the not too distant future. And that’s quite
a head of steam to offer our customers. There’s
an awful lot you can do with that for consumer
and business services before you need to worry
about upgrade. We’ve got a nice path for the
next few years.” If this is the case, and LTE
matures concurrently, the WiMAX time to
market advantage could be negated.
Pusey’s view on the headroom afforded
by HSPA is shared by many WCDMA operators,
but not by Paul Senior. “That’s just not
true,” he says, continuing: “If you look at how
much spectrum they’ve got and the spectral
efficiencies of those technologies, and the
lack of smarts, it’s simply not going to be
enough. Go to Tokyo and use HSDPA on your »
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