The wireless industry is getting ready for the G4, the next generation wireless standard that promises to deliver voice, text, image, and video data to and from your cell phone. The two leading contenders include WiMax, and the legacy telco standard, LTE (short for Long Term Evolution). Both are facing-off at the Mobile World Congress and Expo in Barcelona, Spain this week.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor

On the WiMax side, the consortia is reporting growing momentum, including a big win for the technology with the recent announcement that Bharat Sanchar Nigam, Ltd., BSNL, India’s state-owned and largest telecommunications company, is giving the nod to WiMax technology. This follows the resurrected Sprint XOHM version of WiMax, announced last month at CES.

On the other hand, LTE is being positioned by some as the "WiMax Killer." Others believe that this is simply an act of desperation in the face of a formidable rival.

The big news from the show (what many have come to see, hear and discuss) includes bandwidth breakthroughs in LTE to the tune of 300Mbps in recent field trials. According to TelecomWeb, the LTE System Architecture Evolution (SAE) Trial Initiative (LSTI), that it completed the second "key round of testing hitting a somewhat phenomenal 300 Mbps for the technology." They admittedly disclosed that the announcement "…is clearly timed for next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona." Indeed TelecomWeb suspects that the tests were rushed in order to have results ready for that annual event."

The LSTI, formed in May of 2007, is a group of wireless industry "old guard" that includes Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Orange, Nokia, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Since then, China Mobile, Huawei, LG Electronics, NTT DoCoMo, NXP, Samsung, Signalion, Telecom Italia, Qualcomm, and ZTE have joined.

LTE is a telecom-centric project. It is not a standard yet, but it is expected to mold the new release 8 of the UMTS IP-based standard. LTE’s overriding characteristic is many telco layers and proprietary protocols (see data flow image.)

Want more details? Well, get ready because this gets a bit convoluted as acronyms become nested in yet more acronyms. LTE is a variant of the 3GPP (or third generation partnership project) to improve the UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system). This is done via a evolved E-UTRAN, that stands for E (evolved) U (UMTS) TRAN (Terrestrial Radio Access Network) that itself is a collective term for the Node B’s (or base transceiver station), a part of the WCDMA air transport technology (I’m not making this up). There is much more to this like the RNC, short for Radio Network Controller, and the governing elements (base stations) in the UMTS radio access network.

As the Internet becomes a larger part of the mobile experience, service providers must choose how to get there. The LTE option represents legacy equipment upgrades to support an IP based system beyond 3G, versus a new Internet delivery network layer based on WiMax technology-coexisting with 3G delivery services.

For now, WiMax has the deployment advantage with a network build-out in full swing, certified products already available in volume and handsets, laptops, and other wireless devices with embedded WiMax appearing now. LTE is not expected to get there until 2010.

While momentum for WiMax is building (see full report in this month’s Mobile Display Report), it is not wise to underestimate the staying power of legacy technology. One look at the Mobile World Congress show floor - where technology demos abound - tells the LTE story.

One more plus on the WiMax side - beyond mobile wireless applications, the technology also offers a viable alternative to Cable and DSL broadband to the home, with the possibility of breaking the duopoly-pricing stranglehold over consumers. This alone is a compelling reason for us to hope for its continued deployment success.

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