I agree, LTE & UMB has better chance in existing carriers market, WiMAX will probably get rolled out by Cable operators, DSL,Satellite, and WISPs! I feel some of this crowd will go with LTE & UMB as well. some reason, I am not also sold on the use case Intel presents about Laptop yet. As I see UMTS cards in the market by carriers, I have not seen traction.

Raj

I agree that the mere existence of WiMax might help the efforts to move towards open standards for the mobile operator base stations, and certainly WiMax itself will follow the WiFi route of commoditization thanks to Intel et al (at least on the device side).

But given that LTE, UMB and WiMax are all heading toward the same bits/Hz/sector on spectral efficiency, I’m guessing the overall cost to roll out for incumbents will still be lower to stick with existing upgrade paths.

Despite my skepticism, I still hope that WiMax at least provides enough competition to keep the mobile folks on their toes. With a Centrino WiMax chipset in every laptop, and Clearwire and Sprint in 2.5GHz, then Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T will have a harder time maintaining a walled-garden world with crazy charges for content and blocking traffic they don’t make money on (ie, VoIP, etc.).

Paul

There is some good coming out of WiMax world mainly around open standards for Baseband to DFE links such as OBSAI, and CPRI which can enable carriers to deploy different configuration of Macro Cell, Pico Cell type base stations , by using Fiber in between, other standards can leverage lot this work as well. enabling them to optimize on deployment cost. On spectral efficency and performance all UMB, HSPA and WIMAX is upto carriers which way to go. Mobile WiMax has power eff issue on the handset side, jury is out if any one can solve that issue and add more features than other two standards. Also proposed data rate of 22Mbits by WiMax is shared medium in that spectral area.

Raj

I agree that the network backhaul is going to be interesting. The incumbents certainly have an advantage there.

Base station locating will also be a challenge. To get the high data rates that are being discussed, you need a strong signal, stronger than you need for a voice call. The carriers may need to re-architect their networks for better coverage.

It’s still not obvious what the use case for the added BW is going to be though. It’s my understanding that the uptake rate on anything other than text messaging is pretty small. I’m sure that the UI has a lot to do with it.

WiMax on a nationwide network is a real leap of faith. I can see the WISP market jumping on it if they can get spectrum.

Dave

Fair point about UMB and LTE that it’s not purely about software (HSDPA mostly was, as was EV-DO Rev. A). But vendors have a good idea of future upgrades and generally try to future-proof base stations to avoid wholesale “Rip-and-Replace” (a blade server here, a modem there, etc.). I think the bigger issues in the network for all of these are about backhaul demands as speeds head north, and moving towards pure IP in the core NW.

In both cases though, switching to WiMax still feels like a leap of faith in comparison. Greenfield operators maybe, but incumbents not so much.

Paul

From a networks/billing point of view, UMB and LTE have an advantage, since they will migrate the current billing approaches.

I agree with GJ, that a bigger issue is customer service is crucial. Everytime I have to deal with Verizon Wireless, I feel the veins in my forehead starting to pop out….

Dave
http://www.keystoneradio.com

I wish companies would realize that user experience matters. That means good UI and good customer service. I don’t care how much content, speed or bandwidth you have if you don’t get those two things right.

GJ
http://www.60in3.com