Thursday, 23 October 2008

LTE and WiMAX Battle for 4G Supremacy

In 2008, the road to wireless 4G cleared a bit, with ultra-mobile broadband (UMB) left publicly by the roadside, narrowing the path to two technologies: LTE and WiMAX, reports In-Stat.

The high-tech market research firm says, both 4G technologies, meaning those technologies that are expected to meet the requirements of IMT-Advanced, are far from being commercially deployed. Both LTE Advanced and 802.16m WiMAX are being specially crafted to offer 100Mbps mobile throughput and 1Gbps stationary throughput; these extremely high throughput capabilities are expected to be a critical part of the ITU's IMT-Advanced requirements.

"Mobile WiMAX effectively came on the scene in 2006 with South Korea's WiBro; the earliest commercial LTE deployment will be in 2009," says Gemma Tedesco, In-Stat analyst.

Overall, In-Stat expects that mobile WiMAX will ultimately outpace LTE over the next few years due to timing of network roll-outs.

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
• The success of the Sprint/Clearwire mobile WiMAX roll-out is expected to have a huge effect on whether or not large worldwide operators will roll out mobile WiMAX.

• Mobile WiMAX and LTE will represent only a miniscule portion of total 2G/3G/4G cellular subscriptions in 2013, with GSM/EDGE/GPRS expected to account for more than 55 percent of the total 4.8 billion subscriptions.

• HSPA may turn into 802.16e WiMAX's true competitor, and also may delay LTE roll-outs.