LTE is about to go commercial as a real-world 4G mobile broadband technology, by the end of the year. And with that, the era of LTE v. WiMAX is coming to a close. The question now is how these two complementary technologies will ultimately architect new business models, not which one will do it better.
“There is an explosion of demand for mobile broadband, of course, and the real challenge has been in deciding the best way to fill it, because we have two viable technologies,” said Bruce Brda, senior vice president and general manager of the networks segment of Motorola Inc.'s Enterprise Mobility Solutions division. “But the debate is now over. People have chosen their technology and are on a path for either WiMAX or LTE.”
While most Tier 1 operators around the world have chosen LTE as their particular 4G poison, WiMAX clearly will remain a technology with critical mass. Aside from soon-to-be-eradicated differentiators like the spectrum it can operate in (LTE is somewhat constricted), or the fact that it can elegantly support VoIP, unlike LTE, WiMAX also enjoys an embedded base that’s not to be sniffed at.
Dave Maquera, chief strategy officer at Clearwire Corp., which covers 34 million Points of Presence (PoPs) with WiMAX today in 27 markets (120 PoPs are planned by the end of the year), said that WiMAX did give it a clear and obvious advantage over its broadband competitors. “We are the first 4G operator,” he said. “We built this network from the ground up as a massive packet delivery wireless network. And there is a multitude of devices and applications and partners and business models that haven't really been created yet. We are architected to support all of those new business models.
With LTE finally coming online, WiMAX players are burying the hatchet in the previously bitter technology war between the two 4G rivals. Some, like Sprint-Nextel Corp. and Clearwire, are even leaving the door open to incorporating LTE technology into their networks at some point. After all, the two share 80 percent of the same DNA, being flat, OFMD-based, all-IP platforms.
Sprint chose WiMAX some time ago (the carrier is now reselling the Clearwire network for most of its 4G markets) on the basis of its time-to-market advantage. It also made sense considering Sprint’s holdings in the TDD spectrum bands.
But Sprint CEO Dan Hesse doesn’t rule out adding LTE to the mix. “WiMAX was a tried, true, tested technology with an ecosystem,” Hesse said. “And LTE will most likely be the larger of the two 4G standards. But we couldn’t wait. However, with our spectrum position, especially combined with Clearwire’s, we have the total flexibility to add new technologies later.”
LTE will soon show whether it can do the same in the real world. Verizon Wireless will go commercial before the end of the year, and MetroPCS announced at CTIA that it was building a Las Vegas LTE network for launch in 2010 using Samsung’s complete solution for the infrastructure. To the device point made by Brda, it will also offer Samsung’s dual-mode SCH900 CDAM-LTE handset this year, which will support streaming video on-demand, full-track music downloads, enhanced Web capabilities, voice calling, a 3.3inch AMOLED touch screen, a four-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard, an accelerometer, a camera, the Samsung OS, BREW and TouchWiz, and both MetroPCS’ and Samsung’s widgets and applications store.
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