There is always a standards battle going on in telecom. The current fight is about LTE and WiMAX. Even though the main battlegrounds are the ITU, GSMA and various locations in the developed world, skirmishes will take place in places like India and Sri Lanka where WiMAX deployment has already started. This will be something to keep an eye on.
Wireless telecoms | Culture clash | Economist.com
Both 4G technologies promise wireless nirvana: fast, ubiquitous broadband. Once radio chips are cheap enough, they will crop up not just in handsets and laptops, but in devices such as digital cameras and electricity meters, which are unconnected today. But the telecoms and computer industries have very different ideas about how this should be done, and this explains the split between WiMAX and LTE (which are technically similar). WiMAX is an attempt by the computer industry to export its way of doing things to the telecoms industry—and LTE is the response.
LTE (Long Term Evolution) is a technology based on existing mobile network and has broad support from the industry heavyweights such as NOKIA, Samsung, Motorolla… therefore I see LTE as the evolution to existing 3G network
First sentence of the Economist article’s fifth paragraph is quite interesting. It says, “Intel’s vision, and that of its allies, is that wireless broadband should be as “open” as the internet. WiMAX devices need not be subsidized by operators and will be sold in retail stores.”
Regrettably, it is yet to happen and there is no sign of that happening in the near future either. No wonder Intel has been frantically dishing out funds through its venture capital outlet to promote WiMax that remains un-standardized till today.
This article correctly portrays Ericsson being the champion of LTE. But Ericsson never bribes operators or policymakers to promote LTE. Rather Ericsson has been relentlessly amplifying the simple and basic truth – 3G/HSPA has a huge pool of standardized devices (Data cards and handsets) and the technology is the most effective cum affordable tool to bridge the digital divide.
That’s why the LTE spectrum has to be protected from the whim of WiMax.