WiMAX versus LTE debate continues
However, vendors that support long term evolution (LTE) say LTE is also here –but is it as pervasive as WiMAX and fully certified? The answer is no. Will LTE become a force to be reckoned with in the near future? Definitely yes! This article looks at both systems.
What is WiMAX?
“A Wi-Fi hotspot is like an oasis in the desert. As you travel, your notebook connects to one Wi-Fi oasis after another to replenish your internet thirst. In between and beyond these Wi-Fi watering holes are vast expanses of dead air where your notebook is unconnected” – so says an Intel WiMAX web page.
This is what I experienced when travelling between Seattle and Portland in the USA. As I came closer to Portland, WiMAX made the deserts come alive with the crackle of broadband internet access.
If a picture paints a thousand words, than hands-on experience must paint many thousand words. I visited the Intel facilities in Portland, where I was greeted by an enthusiastic Tim Sweeney, manager of the Advanced Applications lab. His first words were: “I am not going to convince you about WiMAX, you are going to convince yourself.” He handed me a WiMAX-enabled laptop to play with for a day, and I was certainly convinced!
Intel have several laboratories which are used by end-user equipment manufacturers to test the Intel-embedded WiMAX and WiFi modules that power hand-held devices, netbooks and notebooks to freely switch between 3G WiFi and 4G WiMAX. Intel aim to have these modules embedded in every end-user device.
I left Intel eager to surf the web and test my new-found internet freedom. On the train to the Portland suburb of Forest Heights where I was staying, I powered up the laptop and looked at EE Publishers’ website. I read it faster than I do at home with my Telkom Do-broadband ADSL. I tried several other websites around the world, watched a NASA video and some stuff on YouTube. Before I knew it, the computerised voice on the train announced my destination station, Sunset Transfer centre. In the 30 minutes on the train, I did not once lose the signal.
The Portland WiMAX network is operated by Clearwire, one of the largest mobile internet companies in the USA. It consistently provided a downlink speed of 5 Mbps and an uplink at 500 kbps. The Clearwire specification states a download of between 3 – 6 Mbps with burst of up to north of 10 Mbps) and an upload speed of up to I Mbps. Portland is very hilly but even in the valleys the speeds stayed within their specs.
“We firmly believe WiMAX is the next-generation of wireless technology designed to enable pervasive, high-speed mobile internet access to the widest array of devices including notebook PCs, handsets, smartphones, and consumer electronics such as gaming devices, cameras, camcorders, music players, and more,” said Sweeney.
“Think of WiMAX as taking the best part of cellular network access – the part that allows you to easily connect anywhere within your service provider’s wide coverage area – and taking the best part of your Wi-Fi experience, the fast speeds and a familiar broadband internet experience, and combining them into a new wireless standard.”
Clearwire is taking mobility where it should be
By then I was totally convinced that WiMAX is the broadband-on-the-move solution. But why then are so many operators holding back for LTE? I decided to travel to Seattle in Washington state (not Washington DC) and pose that question to the CIO of Clearwire, Kevin Hart. “We can talk about the radical pros and cons of WiMAX vs LTE, but one is in production and the other is yet to be seen. We currently have hundreds of thousands of connected customers and during 2010 we are planning to add 120-million customers, giving them access to WiMAX while LTE is still mostly in the lab testing stage,” said Hart.
WiMAX development is on-going
Internationally WiMAX is the leading 4G technology. “WiMAX Forum certified products are the backbone to creating an open, interoperable network,” says Ron Resnick, president and chairman of the WiMAX Forum. “504 deployments in 145 countries speak for themselves.” During 2009 Intel and Huawei set up a WiMAX interoperability laboratory. Based on both WiMAX infrastructure and terminal equipment provided by Huawei and Intel, the laboratory replicates a real end-to-end test environment. Ensuring interoperability between infrastructure and end-user devices is key to delivering highly matured and rapidly deployable solutions. And that is what WiMAX is achieving.
What stops South African telcos from introducing mobile WiMAX? From the cellular providers point of view it is perhaps that migration from 3G to 4G is easier when taking the LTE route than to forklift to WiMAX. The others, who knows?
WiMAX is being used to provide fixed connections. Telkom offers it to customers where they cannot provide DSL. Neotel, Screamer and others have also deployed WiMAX but in a fixed configuration. Other companies like Poynting are offering a range of WiMAX antennas and vendors such as Alverion and Motorola all have WiMAX-certified equipment ready to be shipped and deployed
Where do we stand with LTE? Is it worth the wait?
“LTE for 3G networks promises an exciting and radical transformation of the wireless experience, with rich and fast multimedia services of incredible quality,” said Malan Smith of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) at SATNAC 2009. The company is already providing its customers with LTE-compatible Flexi base station hardware, and offering a smooth path to tomorrow’s ultra-high-speed wireless broadband.
By the end of 2008, the company had already delivered new LTE-ready hardware to more than ten major mobile operators in Europe, Asia and North America, reinforcing its position as the frontrunner in LTE with a scalable, flat architecture solution.
NSN is also conducting LTE trials in live network environments with leading operators around the globe, gaining valuable experience in LTE air interface performance in the field. The results of these trials are used to ensure that products, solutions and planning processes are fully optimised for commercial network rollouts, expected to start later in 2010.
LTE is an evolutionary step from existing infrastructure but is still based on orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) principles. It is however a major breakthrough in terms of performance levels beyond what is practical with code division multiple access (CDMA) approaches.
LTE will coexist with both 3G and 2G systems, fitting into current operator-owned spectrum or into new spectrum to be acquired. Perhaps this is why LTE is more attractive to 3G operators than WiMAX.
In August last year NSN mounted a spectacular display of what LTE is capable of, demonstrating speed and agility of the system. According to Smith, LTE is ready, but a lot of preparation still has to be carried out on spectrum allocation and licensing. In the interim telcos can build LTE-ready networks. “For us it is important that operators are LTE-ready. The equipment we demonstrated today is LTE-ready and commercially available. Operators can build their LTE-ready networks and when spectrum and licences are allocated they can do a software switch and operate on LTE.”
“The beauty of LTE is that we are building on all the mobile knowledge and expertise of the past 20 years which started with GSM. It will only increase our mobile experience.”
As a Motorola spokesperson said recently, “WiMAX and LTE will complement each other. We will see both in networks delivering broadband on-the-move.” The main question will then be: Will end-user devices be able to see both networks and be able to select the one that offers the best signal and be able to switch between networks seamlessly as one moves from cell to cell? That would be utopia, but, given time, not impossible.
WiMax versus LTE << discussion
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