The upgrade cards favour LTE over WiMAX: Ericsson CTO

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 13 January 2009 14:44

Opinion and Analysis

Listening to Intel CEO boss Craig Barrett and Ericsson's chief technology officer Hakan Eriksson last week, one could be forgiven for thinking we were witnessing a rerun of the HD DVD versus Blu-ray war in the mobile broadband space. However, neither believes that will be the case - albeit for different reasons.

As far as Intel’s Barrett is concerned, WiMAX is here to stay because of its first mover advantage in the market while LTE is still "two years away". On the other hand, Ericsson’s Eriksson is adamant that there is an inevitability that carriers will upgrade to LTE from their existing, less advanced 3G technologies, as the upgrade path is clearer and more seamless.

Addressing a gathering of analysts at Ericsson's LTE centre of excellence in Melbourne Australia, Eriksson explained the benefits of carriers and countries choosing LTE over WiMAX along the following lines:

He said that China needed a "face saving" upgrade path from its home-grown 3G technology, TD-SCDMA, to a next gen technology, and had decided on LTE over WiMAX.

A country like China with its massive population and manufacturing base already makes a huge impact on LTE and the ongoing development of LTE technology for the rest of the world – an advantage that could have been WiMAX’s, had Intel managed to convince China to go with WiMAX instead of LTE.

Given LTE is a standard the telco operators demanded from the equipment manufacturers, rather than the other way around of equipment manufacturers delivering a standard to telcos (as was the case with 3G), it makes sense that more telcos are interested in LTE than WiMAX.

In addition, LTE doesn’t mean the immediate dismantling of HSPA networks. Just as GSM networks are still in widespread use today, LTE technology will be supplemented by existing HSPA, HSDPA, WCDMA and GSM networks around the world.

CONTINUED Page 2