| " LTE and WiMAX will be identical for all practical purposes" |
| Thursday, 20 August 2009 10:31 |
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WiMAX and LTE will deliver about the same perfor WiMAX is working well now; LTE will be deployed in 2010 but the carriers - including Verizon - don't think it's ready for volume use until 2012-2013. Home receivers on WiMAX are still much more expensive than cell phones (>$100 for most) and LTE until 2012-2013 will probably also carry a premium. Nearly all the telcos in the West have decided to wait for LTE because it's designed as an upgrade for their existing networks. Terry Norman of Analysys predicts "a difficult future of WiMAX in the developed markets of Europe and North America;" WiMAX folks believe their 3 year head start will tip things their way. 4-10 megabits is faster than the majority of DSL connections in the world today, so clearly some people will go all wireless. We're seeing small signs of that in some markets, especially in the Mideast and East Europe if the incumbent prices DSL too high. The U.S. WISPs are generally finding customers among those who can't get DSL or cable, a shrinking group, although some with exemplary service like Brett Glass are competing head on. Anton Wahlman was the first major analyst on the wireline side to predict major defections, enough to put a near term limit on how many DSL/cable lines connect. I'm more skeptical, waiting for data before I predict it will be a major factor. Line growth is slowing anyway as the developed world reaches 60-80% saturation; I don't think we'll know the effect until 2014 or so when LTE is wide and competitive - unless a company like Verizon decides to use low data pricing to build market share. Verizon's incumbent territory is only about 30% of U.S. homes and they have no landline play across 70%, although I doubt it will be their early strategy. RUS loans for WiMAX need to be carefully evaluated for whether the business plan assumes LTE competition. Some are financed over 12 years based on landline experience. While towers may last that long, any equipment installed in 2009 is sure to be obsolete well before 12 years. Loans of more than 5-7 years need to be based on a business plan assuming more competion after 2012 and likely equipment replacement in that period. The Obama team has already decided to make available as much spectrum as possible, which is crucial. That will include innovative technologies to get more out of every megahertz, like cognitive radio. I've also urged renewing Jonathan Adelstein's "use it or lose it" rules to require full buildout on license renewals. Everyone assumes U.S. wireless licenses are automatically renewed, but the documents are very clear that the FCC can impose regulations the carriers must follow. Verizon and AT&T are already over 90%, with many more rural towers soon to go up. The cost to go to 95-98% coverage is modest, far less than the value of the spectrum renewal. Real buildout requirements after 10 years cost no public money, will not be onerous if well designed, and are a natural way to help rural areas. (picture adelstein_with_parrot_supports_use_it_or_lose_it from FCC.gov) Here's an Analysys comment Future of WiMAX uncertain, as Clearwire investors write off billions of dollars: Analysys Mason commentComment by Terry Norman, Senior Analyst at Anlaysys Mason For immediate release: London, United Kingdom: 20 August 2009 "Over the last two or three years, WiMAX has gained a strong foothold in developing countries in which there is a need for broadband, but the fixed infrastructure is poor. However, Analysys Mason doubts that the developing market offers sufficient growth potential and size to sustain continued investment from such heavyweights as Cisco Systems, Intel and Motorola without additional sales in the developed markets. But in the developed markets of Europe and the USA, we see some early signs of a difficult future for WiMAX. In the USA, Sprint is rolling out a national WiMAX network through its majority shareholding in Clearwire, but the growth in number of subscribers has been disappointing. Google and Intel, among others, have already written off billions of dollars they had invested in Clearwire. This does not look good for WiMAX. Also, it appears that the North American CDMA operators may move to LTE, rather than to WiMAX. Ericsson’s purchase of Nortel’s interests in CDMA and LTE will encourage CDMA operators to shift to LTE, creating greater acceptance of LTE in North America. Huawei is strongly promoting LTE and has recently opened up a new LTE laboratory in Richardson, Texas, where operators can familiarise themselves with the technology. In developed European markets, operators are almost certainly upgrading their 3G technologies to 4G LTE in order to match the rising demand for data. Analysys Mason’s Research division recently carried out an extensive series of interviews with the leading MNOs in Europe: none of the operators interviewed hinted that they might adopt WiMAX, now that LTE is imminent. They see WiMAX as a technology to be deployed in an ad hoc fashion in developing countries. With end-to-end IP capability and a wide choice of carrier frequencies, WiMAX is in many ways an ideal broadband access technology for developing countries with poor fixed infrastructure. A few years ago, WiMAX had a head start on UMTS: it was the first all-IP technology that was well-suited to carrying data, while other advantages, such as enhanced antenna systems and flexible spectrum and bandwidth use, were coming along in the pipeline. However, the lack of a broadband wireless spectrum (for example, 2.6GHz) meant that WiMAX could not capitalise upon this early mover advantage to create markets in the developed countries. LTE now also incorporates the early technology advantages of WiMAX, such as OFDMA and all-IP capability, so we would argue that LTE has caught up with WiMAX. When the new IEEE 802.16m WiMAX standards are developed, the rivalry between LTE and WiMAX will be greater: in terms of spectrum, bandwidth capacity and coverage, and the development of advanced antenna systems, such as beamforming, LTE and WiMAX will be identical for all practical purposes. We expect that they will compete head-to-head for the same customer base, and LTE will have a clear advantage in this. Analysys Mason believes that WiMAX has a role to play and will continue, but mostly in developing countries. Because of the limited potential of these markets, there will be some consolidation of vendors and providers along the way." In Analysys Mason's WiMAX tracker, we follow more than 500 WiMAX deployments worldwide, reporting their key features, including: country; operator; spectrum band; licence date; launch date; key vendor and additional vendors (where publicly available); network status; and geographical coverage. Currently, all deployments are opportunistic and/or in developing countries, and we expect this trend to continue. Useful links: |
mance when both technologies are mature in a few years, perhaps as soon as 2011-2. Both are using the same advanced engineering techniques (MIMO, OFDM, etc.) and pure IP architecture. The best estimate I have of practical average speeds comes from Dick Lynch of Verizon, 4-10 megabits, although when we get actual results from large deployments the average speed results could surprise. In particular, all the wireless data models assume that few homes will watch HD TV over the net or run any other app that requires massive bandwidth. My first guess is that most folks wanting HD will keep a landline and there are reasonable ways to handle the traffic, but this needs to be tracked. The 70 megabit/70 miles claims touted widely are not for real deployments and deliverable average speeds.
