Design Article
Endgame: Will WiMax and LTE find happiness in multimode?
Jack Shandle
6/16/2008 12:00 AM EDT
After a couple of years of verbal skirmishing and specsmanship, there are signs that the WiMax and LTE camps may be seeking a negotiated settlement.
For many players, there are compelling reasons for peace. Saving money tops the list. A head-to-head battle over the next few years would require an outlay of multiple billions of dollars in equipment deployment. It would also be confusing for end users, and might even determine a winner and loser in a very high-stakes game.
Until recently, much has been made of the differences between the two 4G wireless-communications candidates, usually by comparing performance characteristics and ignoring architectural similarities.
But from a technology perspective, how different are the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access standard and the Third-Generation Partnership Project's Long Term Evolution specification? More important, what multimode technologies are beginning to surface that make a standards-oriented battle for market supremacy pointless in the long run?
Earlier this month, Sean Maloney, executive vice president at WiMax champion Intel Corp., hinted that the two standards should be harmonized because they are "about 80 percent similar." Maloney added that Intel is looking into ways to integrate the technologies. It is technically possible to create a chip set that could be used for both, he said.
Maloney's comments might be interpreted as a response to speculation at February's Mobile World Congress that WiMax could find a place within the LTE standard. Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin tossed out that suggestion during his keynote in Barcelona, Spain. Intel, of course, considers WiMax the more mature standard.
While the feelers may not qualify as a love fest, they come at a time when emerging semiconductor technologies promise to make LTE-WiMax multimode operation a reality in the not-too-distant future. In that context, spending billions to deploy standard-specific networks becomes unattractive.
"The differences are more political than anything else," said Nadine Manjaro, senior analyst for wireless infrastructure at ABI Research (New York). Although Manjaro predicted the standards would merge, she also said LTE will not be a formal standard until 2009 or 2010. Thus, she said, it would be 2015 before any merger takes place.
Next: Peas in OFDM pod
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Elibom
6/16/2008 2:05 PM EDT
Regarding the PAPR issue (Peak to Average Power Ratio), I found there is one tutorial quite interesting......
http://to.swang.googlepages.com/peaktoaveragepowerratioreduction
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fadg
6/17/2008 10:33 AM EDT
At the rate of WiMax current adoption, in the two to three years it will take to even bring the LTE standard to commercial viability WiMax will have overwhelmingly been adopted and installed all over the world. Major players of the old school can huff and puff for LTE but they will do so at the risk of defining themselves as no longer relevant in a new world of broadband mobile and fixed communications.
Not only will WiMax start to chew up traditional cell market share, it will become the IP source of choice because it is intrinsically more reliable than hard wired rat's nests for the last mile that delivers frustratingly unreliable service for video as well as VOIP and on-demand IP video. No doubt LTE and WiMax will merge down the road, but it will be the LTE folks doing the adapting. WiMax is here and will dominate. It is already dominating despite the puff fantasies of media reports to the contrary.
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Jacomo
6/23/2008 9:01 AM EDT
There is a solution to the following:
" the wide spectrum covered by the two standards--about 4 GHz. LTE would likely support the 900-MHz to 1,900-MHz bands."
The biggest shortcoming to Clearwire/Sprint new WIMAX networks is the fatc that they have to use the 2.5Ghz (in the USA) which seriously limits their ability to provide a universal carrier grade Broadband Wireless Network (in Urban and RURAL Areas). I understand that they own most if not all this spectrum already and it is very solid in Urban corridors/canyons, but it really sucks (while mobile) in any market where their is any semblance of Foliage. Hence will flounder when it comes up against the Ubiquitous coverage allowed by a 700Mhz based LTE network.
What this new Clearwire consortium (including Intel) must do is focus on developing a FDD and AWS (1700 & 2100Mhz Spectrum) based products/services for WiMAX. The sooner they get away from 2.5Ghz the better. Keep in mind that this may not be such a big deal for the Clearwire consortium in that their MSO partners own a major chuck of the 1700 & 2100Mhz (AWS) spectrum which just by chance is very close to and easily integrated into any mutlimode chips/radios.
Also from what I hear from AT&T (quoted by their CTO) is that they will be using both 700Mhz and AWS for their future LTE deployment.
Jim A.
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Jacomo
6/30/2008 2:50 PM EDT
If they deployed a AWS (1700Mhz and 2100Mhz) based WiMAX (FDD) radio they would be within range of the planned 700Mhz and 900MHz LTE networks
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