WiMAX vs LTE

This is not that particular to the telecom industry and there have been similar arguments for consumer electronics and various other fields. Who does not remember the ¡¥Betamax vs. VHS¡¦ story in the early 80¡¦s and its recent sibling with ¡¥Blueray¡¦ format winning over ¡¥HD DVD¡¦.

These are complex issues for which technical arguments are almost never the deciding factor. It almost always comes down to cost efficiency and simplicity or adoption of open standards. In the very example of VCR, although ¡¥Betamax¡¦ was a superior technology in most aspects, the key winning difference was as simple as ¡¥VHS¡¦ providing longer home-recording time.

The days of the Video Cassette Recorder are long gone as we are entering a new era of Video Creation, User Generated Content and social Networking. All this has been made possible through the proliferation of Broadband Internet Access. With the tremendous impact of Broadband Internet over the last decade and the overwhelming success of the mobile phone, today is all about Mobile Broadband and therefore it is not all that surprising that LTE and WiMAX are being the center of interest and are fuelling a new breed of pundits arguing over which technology is best.

LTE and WiMAX are commonly referred as ¡¥4G¡¦ technologies aiming at capitalizing on previous ¡¥3G¡¦ or Third generation technology limitations. Third generation technologies started out with a vision and requirements from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) within the framework of International Mobile Telecommunications for the year 2000 (IMT-2000). As it is the nature of standards to reach limits and required evolutions to support new capabilities, a new vision was needed. As a result, IMT-Advanced is a concept from the ITU for mobile communication systems with capabilities which go further than that of IMT-2000 and is a worldwide set of requirements for a family of standards for the 4th generation of mobile communications.

Although ITU publish recommendation documents to define in detail technologies that fall under the IMT-Advanced umbrella, ¡¥4G¡¦ is basically defined as any mobile technology that can deliver over 100Mbps throughput over an ¡¥all IP¡¦ based infrastructure.WiMAX and LTE are officially recognized as IMT-2000 technologies while their respective evolutions, namely WiMAX 802.16m and LTE Advanced are expected to meet the IMT-Advanced requirements and therefore officially referred to as 4G technologies.

Using 4G to describe a technology today is essentially a market positioning.

Recently in 2008, the path to 4G has become a lot clearer. With Ultra-Mobile Broadband (UMB) developments officially abandoned, only LTE and WiMAX remain viable options going forward. While this has clarified the situation for most operators in the world, it has created a significant amount of confusion and a solid ground for opposition between proponents of either technology. The core issue is that Network evolutions and ultimately the underlying technologies are almost always driven by competition rather than real demand. Current mobile broadband business models using Third Generation technologies are challenging at best and hardly profitable, which was the main reason for WiMAX to emerge initially while traditional mobile technologies were being driven mainly by voice demand with little or no incentive to provide data access.

With more than 100 commercial contracts worldwide and the first large scale mobile WiMAX deployment with Sprint in the US, WiMAX has already been brought to market and the success of the Sprint roll-out will have tremendous effect on further adoption worldwide. Ironically, the fact that WiMAX has been developing so fast is actually the main reason for LTE standardization to accelerate. From a technical standpoint, LTE and WiMAX are very similar with IP and OFDM as core component. OFDM is not a new technology, given the complexity of the algorithm it was not commercially viable until recently as CPU cost has come to the tipping point for this kind of technology to become viable. Beside LTE and WiMAX, WiFi as well as DSL are also using OFDM technology. The standards themselves are still in specification phase and should be completed by 2010. However WiMAX has a slight advantage as 802.16e has been standardize for some time while LTE standards are close to completion.

There are however some other significant differences, such as the fact that WiMAX is based on IEEE while LTE is a 3GPP development. IEEE has a proven history of being more supportive of open standards than 3GPP although a lot of efforts have been made towards open standards in 3GPP. The main difference between WiMAX and LTE is the deployment strategy. WiMAX requires a new network to be built whereas LTE is an evolution of existing WCDMA/HSPA networks and therefore has the footprint advantage with close to 80% of subscribers worldwide. With UMB no longer an option, both CDMA and GSM operators are heading towards LTE.

The other key issue is with spectrum resources. More than fifty percent of the world¡¦s population now lives in an area where a license for WiMAX is available. Licenses have been allocated mainly in TDD 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz. Now, WiMAX FDD is under consideration in the United States, in 1.7 GHz DL or 2.1 GHz UL. This interest follows auctions of the AWS spectrum, because operators have already bought part of the band. 700 MHz frequencies are also becoming available to simplify mass coverage at a reduced cost. LTE, on the other hand, offers more flexibility than WiMAX. All 3GPP operators already have spectrum that can be used for LTE. LTE FDD will become available, initially, in 2.1GHz, AWS, 700 MHz, 2.6GHz, 900 and 1800 MHz. LTE has great flexibility as carriers can be allocated from 1.3MHz wide all the way to 20MHz wide carriers, allowing LTE to be added in bands with existing technologies. LTE TDD is also undergoing standardization due to market needs, especially in China in connection with TD-SCDMA. In both cases, the amount of spectrum available and channelization attached will weigh heavily on the quality and bandwidth they will be able to offer customers.

Thus, even if licenses suitable for both technologies are available, a technology choice may hinge on which license affords the more attractive end-user service relative to cost.

As a conclusion, in today¡¦s fluid market environment, many evolution scenarios are possible. Alcatel-Lucent helps operators succeed in their growth and transformation process by remaining a technology-neutral advisor.

As a leader in both technologies, Alcatel-Lucent is well-positioned to serve as a neutral advisor on the topic. It is committed to guide operators to the technology choice that offers the strongest economic and strategic benefits in an unbiased manner.

 Marketplace Rankings:

 No. 3 in 3G/W-CDMA ¡V more than 50 networks in 35 countries

 No. 1 in CDMA2000 networks ¡V more than 45% market share

 No. 3 in GSM ¡V 180 customers in 93 countries

 No. 1 in the Wireless Transmission Long Haul market segment 

 No. 1 WiMAX with 34 commercial contracts and more than 70 pilots worldwide

 Radio Frequency Systems: Leader in Wireless infrastructure

 Leader player in TD-SCDMA

 WiMAX and LTE:

„h Alcatel-Lucent is leading the way in the WiMAX infrastructure market with, to date, 34 commercial contracts, more than 70 pilots, and a significant number of commercial deployments and service launches underway with operators worldwide - including many of the market's first movers. Alcatel-Lucent has now shipped nearly 9,000 Rev-e base stations and already has enough equipment in service to support more than half a million wireless broadband subscribers on 5 continents. Alcatel-Lucent also has established itself as a key driver of the development of the WiMAX ecosystem, with its Open Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) Program becoming one of the industry¡¦s premiere showcases and test-beds for WiMAX terminals from many of the world¡¦s leading WiMAX device vendors.

„h Alcatel-Lucent is determined to drive the transition to all-IP wireless broadband, with LTE as a key step in this transition. LTE is therefore a strategic investment area for the company. Alcatel-Lucent is fully committed to providing its customers with a superior end-to-end LTE solution, leveraging its industry-leading expertise and assets in Broadband and IP networking, as well as its broad, field-proven experience in wireless across the full spectrum of 2G/3G technologies.

„h  Alcatel-Lucent will continue to further increase its R&D effort in LTE. This effort spans across the entire end-to-end LTE solution development program, including radio access (both TDD and FDD), next-generation packet core, IMS, packet transport, device & application ecosystem, etc.

„h Alcatel-Lucent is today participating in major LTE trials around the world (Verizon, Vodafone, China) for both FDD and TDD version of LTE.