The 4G World War is raging in the United States, China and India. Currently, LTE is plummeling WiMAX in India and China. India’s two largest nationwide broadband wireless operators (using TD channels at 2.3 GHz), are going with TD-LTE and other mobile operators seem to be following in line.
China, India and the United States are putting big money on LTE.
- China, which backed unpaired TD-SCDMA, now appears to moving to TD-LTE. China’s other cellular operators, using CDMA and GSM, could go the LTE route, too.
- In India, Reliance Industries has trialed TD-LTE services and plans to launch TD-LTE service throughout India. They are the only firm to hold a nationwide 20 MHz BWA license, having acquired a 95 percent stake in Infotel Broadband. It follows a move by Qualcomm to buy a BWA license and promote the use of TD-LTE. Qualcomm says it plans to sell its Indian TD-LTE business to a major mobile operator, with the provision that TD-LTE technology is used rather than WiMAX.
- In the United States the war between Clearwire and Verizon’s LTE has just begun. It doesn’t look promising for the WiMAX IEEE WiMAX standard. AT&T and Verizon both are building nationwide LTE networks, and even Sprint is talking up an “integrated” approach to 4G. Meanwhile, T-Mobile is holding out for HSPA+
But don’t count out WiMAX just yet.
Of the 9 million BWA/WiMAX million subscribers reported, 5 million are concentrated in the top 20 WiMAX operators. Clearwire (USA), Yota (Russia), Inukshuk (Canada), Axtel (Mexico), Telmex (International), and Korea Telecom (South Korea) are among those with the highest subscriber numbers.
WiMAX has been operational for two years and is now moving up to WiMAX 2.0 — with 100 Mbps (mobile) and 1 Gbps (fixed) using 20 MHz channels. Proponents of WiMAX say it’s the most cost/effective delivery platform yet developed. It costs less, has a proven track record, can use both licensed and unlicensed frequencies, doesn’t waste half the channel capacity “listening”, and is upwardly compatible with WiMAX 2 which should deliver 4X today’s speeds, or 25 Mbps (mobile) and 100 Mbps (fixed).
South Korea, which largely developed the standard, likes WiMAX. So does Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia.
The “WiMAX Forum Southeast Asia Regional Focus 2010”, November 22nd in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and supported by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia (MOSTI).
Market Analyst, Basharat Ashai, gives his review of the Malaysian conference:
- YTL launched its “YES” 4G service on November 19th with 65% coverage in Malaysia. The service offers a pay-as-you-use structure of 9 sen (US$0.03) per 3 MB/1 minute of voice calls/1 SMS message. YTL is expected to instigate a price war given that its bundled all-in-one tariff (voice, data and SMS) is significantly below its current Malaysian competitors.
- Packet One of Indonesia (P1) is moving ahead with WiMAX at an accelerated pace and expects to reach 280K WiMAX subscribers by the end of thiss year. It had 218K WiMAX subscribers at the end of Q3 2010. Usage has grown from 9 GB per subscriber per month in Q2 2010 to 10 GB per subscriber per month in Q3 2010. In the span of less than a year, P1’s average monthly data usage per subscriber has increased by about 30%.
- First Media became the first Indonesian operator to launch WiMAX services at the end of June 2010 (2.3 GHz licenses were awarded in 2009 – license holders must deploy 802.16d equipment). WiMAX’s progress in Indonesia has been held back by a ban on the mobile version of the technology. This situation is expected to be reversed as the regulator is considering changing its rules to allow existing WiMAX operators to upgrade to the 802.16e-2005 standard.
- Five of Taiwan’s licensed WiMAX operators – Global Mobile, First International Telecom (Fitel), Vmax Telecom, Tatung Telecom and Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET) are rolling out WiMAX services in Taiwan. Global Mobile, Vmax and FITEL won licenses for northern Taiwan, while Far EasTone, Tatung and Vastar Cable TV System won licenses for the south. VMax expected 40,000 subscribers by end-2010, and 80,000 in 2011. VMax started its WiMax network on Jan. 26, 2010, covering 85% of Taipei City.
- Japan’s UQ Communications has a nationwide WiMAX network in Japan. Samsung is working to support the WiMAX 2 standard, demonstrating a WiMAX 2 trial system at 330Mbps, at CEATEC in Japan. UQ believes that 30 MHz in the 2.5 GHz band is not enough for WiMAX 2 although it can deploy 802.16m even in the existing 30 MHz. UQ has approached the Japanese government for 20-30 MHz of additional spectrum, which it hopes to obtain in 2011. Happily, 30 MHz of spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band were freed after satellite mobile broadcasting services were shut down last year in Japan.
- Korea Telecom has taken leadership in WiMAX in South Korea, and is currently changing its equipment to operate over the 10MHz channels used by traditional WiMax gear. KT says it will be the first carrier in the world to offer nationwide WiMax service, covering 82 cities across Korea, or 85 percent of the total population, by March, 2011.
Maravedis predicts over 350 million LTE subscribers by 2016, while the number of WiMAX subscribers should reach 50 million. According to 4Gcounts (Issue 12), up to 13 million BWA/WiMAX subscribers are projected by the end of 2010, with more than 600 WiMAX deployments across 149 countries, and more than 200 devices and 60 base stations certified.
ABI Research’s “4G City-by-City Google Earth Map” presents an interactive map of 4G network deployments across the globe (if you’re willing to pay big bucks). They say mobile WiMAX will cover about 8% of the world’s population by the end of 2010, while LTE will cover about 2%. 4Gcounts predicts 13 million WiMAX subs by the end of 2010 with the WiMAX Forum forecasting over 1 Billion people across the world within WiMAX coverage by 2011.
WiMAX remains a viable alternative for broadband connectivity, particularly where migration to full mobility is not expected. WiMAX can replace DSL and cable modem service. LTE doesn’t have the spectrum and can’t harm their legacy business.
Both standards could win – with dual-mode WiMAX/LTE devices.
Article via Daily Wireless
