LTE continues to gain traction among operators around the globe. According to Maravedis’ upcoming 4GCounts Quarterly Report – Issue 10 (February 2010), by the end of 2009 there were twelve new official commitments made by operators to this technology since the previous quarter, bringing the worldwide total to 51. Competition from WiMAX is waning given the strength of LTE backers and cell phone industry inertia.

In the coming months plenty of new frequency options will be available for deploying 4G: 700 MHz (digital dividend in North America), 800 MHz (digital dividend in Europe, CIS, MEA and Mongolia), 900 MHz and 1800 MHz (from refarming of 2G bands), 2 GHz (from unawarded 3G licenses), and 2.6 GHz. WiMAX certification is already a mature process covering 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands, but has failed to activate certification profiles for the digital dividend bands. Furthermore, WiMAX supports TDD only, which reduces options for new licenses to be awarded after the 2.6 GHz auctions to take place this year, given the small percentage of TDD spectrum planned. In addition, the strongest TDD supporter by number of subscribers, China Mobile, has already committed to LTE.

The first commercial LTE deployment ever was accomplished by TeliaSonera in Sweden and Norway. There have been confusing reports about the network’s performance, due to initial tests not being performed accurately. After subsequent tests it has been shown that LTE is working as expected,providing50 Mbps downlink when users are within the coverage zone, which is still reduced in size. On the WiMAX side, Yota is leading the charge, being involved in the first 802.16m trials, although this technology will not be commercially available before well into 2011.

Because of its origin in the data communications world (as WiFi’s big brother), the WiMAX Forum had not seen the need to standardize voice, thus leaving the door open to proprietary solutions. There are no specifications about recommended vocoders, IMS integration or service requirements. On the other hand, LTE supporters knew that focusing on voice services, although delaying the broad adoption of data services, was main path to customers’ pockets. The two initiatives competing to gain supporters are VoLGA and One Voice. The question is choosing between a painless but short-term solution (VoLGA) or a definitive but costly alternative (One Voice).

WiMAX’s 2-3 year time-to-market advantage over LTE has allowed WiMAX operators to offer a relatively wide array of devices in terms of form factors (USB dongles, PC cards, embedded modules, indoor modems, laptops, mini-notebooks and rugged CPEs), compared to only USB dongles being offered at this moment within the few commercial LTE deployments. Nevertheless, LTE’s ecosystem is going to develop much faster than its counterparts’, due to the effort LTE supporters are making to foster new customer needs: home security, appliance monitoring, energy management, etc. Verizon Wireless, as the heaviest LTE supporter worldwide, is very active partnering with applications developers targeting this market.Device manufacturers are also contributing to broaden the possibilities of LTE technology, with Samsung and LG at the forefront. During CES the first LTE MIDs, smartphones and cameras were presented. After the cancellation of Nokia’s N810 production, which was targeted to the other great WiMAX backer, Xohm (Clearwire), HTC is the only WiMAX handset on the market, specifically developed for Yota.

At this year’s MWC, LTE and WiMAX are still neck-and-neck, but it will be interesting to see how the two technologies have exchanged roles with respect to previous years. This time around, it is the WiMAX camp that will be justifying why operators should commit to this technology.

I will be available to meet to discus this issue and more at MWC in Barcelona next week – please contact me if you would like to meet up at the show.

For more information, contact the author at esteban@maravedis-bwa.com

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