Long Term Evolution Deployments

[rpm]

LTE Deployments

The GSA has just published the status of and plans for LTE, which include 34 commitments from network operators.

 

[brilliantt]

According to this article, 3g, hspa, lte and gsm are good, whereas wimax is bad. I just wonder if this firm is in the payroll of the cell co's.

 

[tjunyat]

So much for WiMAX being the next best thing.

 

[entrepr]

According to this article, 3g, hspa, lte and gsm are good, whereas wimax is bad. I just wonder if this firm is in the payroll of the cell co's.

There is some truth in the claim but it is a bit simplistic. Many of the Wimax operators simply don't have 3G licences so they have to go Wimax as that's the licence they have. This is good for competition. Their only drawback is the have to use higher frequencies, which are more expensive to roll out than 900 Ghz. For their roadmaps, they will most likely evolve to a Wimax-LTE combination (if they are already live or soon to be live) instead of the 3G-LTE combination of mobile operators, or even the CDMA-LTE combination. Therefore Wimax will co-exist, it won't die. I agree that it won't grow massively. In SA we should still see Wimax networks.

I am not sure that niche players will survive in the small Wimax market because there is a need for a big R and D budget to keep improving the technology and to ensure the Wimax-LTE roadmap. I think Alvarion probably peaked with the 16d version of Wimax and will slowly fade or be bought out. My money is on vendors such as Huawei to dominate, with a big Wimax 16e footprint and strong on LTE.