Competition between the future of WiMax and LTE has been misconstrued as a heated battle where one is destined to succeed while the other will inevitably fail. The reality is that these technologies shouldn’t be pitted against eachother because they have the potential to concurrently play an important part in the future of wireless.
WiMax has already grown to over 7 million subscribers worldwide with upwards of 400 WiMax deployments. Early developers and adopters of WiMax – Yota, Clearwire, and Packet One – have been joined by new industry partnerships and alliances with common interests in both LTE and WiMax. Intel and Nokia have looked to the future of the two technologies as have Ericsson and Sprint. A number of WiMax IC/SOC suppliers have announced that they are working on LTE and WiMax + LTE multiple mode chips. The Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona this week was another place where WiMax and LTE were discussed in terms of collaboration rather than competition.
This being said, timing is a crucial component that must be taken into consideration. Many experts are predicting a wane in the current LTE hype because though the prospect is exciting, rollout is not expected until 2012 and inevitably, the hype will die down.
“Boatloads of bad press and public complaints will likely ensue for LTE, just as it did for WiMax, because the industry and the public will want to get their hands on what they’ve been promised for the last couple of years…once LTE networks become available and people fall in love with the service, the tides will change and LTE will become hot again,” said Robb Henshaw, Director of Marketing and Communications at Proxim Wireless.
In the future, the widespread use of both technologies will be very dependent upon location and availability. Certain areas may only have access to either WiMax or LTE. This being said, even if WiMax does not become the technology of choice, experts have said that it can be expected that it will still play a major role as a backhaul technology for both 4G and Wi-Fi networks.
As seen in the past, different technologies are ultimately pushed together based on what they have in common and not what makes them different because the market simply wants to provide the best products and services in their interests. It is in the interest of both suppliers and providers to develop both technologies which will then lead to a new overlapping of these two 4G ecosystems.
“Neither of these technologies will emerge as victorious over the other, and neither will be forced to accept a role as the ‘also-ran’ in the annals of tech history. In fact, both WiMax and LTE can and likely will play equally important roles in the future of wireless networks,” said Henshaw.
Such overlapping is already apparent. Sequans, a pioneer supplier of WiMax SOCs, will also be supplying USB dongles for China Mobile for LTE deployment. WiMax superstar Clearwire has discussed the possibility of supporting LTE based on opportunities within the market, referencing LTE’s ability to be used in pre-existing locations of WiMax deployment. This prospect has also been supported by their main suppliers including Motorola, Samsung, and Huawei. Beceem also released its latest chipset offering in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress this week, including a chip that offers a bridge between WiMax and LTE. The Femto Forum released findings as well about how femtocells will be helpful in the deployment of both WiMax and LTE.
The future of WiMax and LTE is not an either/or situation – timing, availability, demand, and collaboration will all affect the development of both technologies and only time will tell which respective niche each will serve.
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