BOSTON-The battle for 4G is still not expected to hit the ground for several years, but the war over which technology will be used to serve consumers is well under way – and heated.
During an opening session at the Mobile Internet World 2008 event, a panel of speakers representing the major wireless technologies traded polite barbs over how their respective offerings would play out on the wireless horizon. While few of the punches left any visible marks, the ferocity of the arguments showed that animosity from the past is still alive and well.
The most-heated debate continues to be between the CDMA and GSM camps, where the GSM camp seems to have an advantage when it comes to support among operators worldwide looking to move beyond existing technology offerings.
That point was well presented by 3G Americas’ President Chris Pearson, who – in response to moderator Berge Ayvazian’s question about a possible merging of the standards bodies in the future – said: “If you have 88% of the market you don’t look at merging your standard.” Uppercut!
Fortunately, other members of the panel – CDMA Development Group VP of Marketing Joe Lawrence and Redline Communications’ VP of marketing and alliances Kevin Suitor, who represented the WiMAX industry – agreed with Pearson’s notion that a merger was not on the table.
The technology battle is also being bolstered by the major operators in the U.S., each of which is aligning itself behind a specific offering. The GSM supporters have the one-two punch of AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, the industry’s No. 1 and No. 2 operators respectively, while No. 3 Sprint Nextel Corp. is held up as the challenger for the WiMAX crowd.
Heavyweight support
With such heavyweight support, 3G Americas’ Pearson was able to land a punishing barrage of body blows. Those punches were backed by support from the industry’s largest players as well as a continuing rash of players looking to deploy HSPA/LTE-based networks to run alongside existing CDMA-based services. As for the WiMAX contender, Pearson brought up Sprint Nextel’s network speed claims that to date have fallen well short of the pre-fight hype, and in some cases were not much more faster than what was being offered by 3G alternatives already in the market.
Pearson tried to downplay the acronym-heavy nature of the migration path of GSM-based vendors that includes UMTS to HSPA to HSPA+ and eventually to LTE, noting that consumers are not interested in the letters, just that they can get wireless broadband performance where they need it.
Sensing a weakness in his opponent, Pearson brought up the CDG’s support for Ultra Mobile Broadband technology, also known as CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision C, which has yet to gain any carrier support. Lawrence admitted that UMB was still an option, but it appeared that the CDG was moving its support behind LTE and WiMAX as next-generation standards.
Cross punches
Lawrence and Suitor could offer little more than ancillary jabs at Pearson, but they did score points in noting the transition from HSPA to LTE will not be as smooth as some might think and that CDMA carriers that plan on deploying LTE will likely come to market sooner than those working through HSPA variations.
Lawrence also claimed that the strong consumer adoption of CDMA-based 3G network services have provided carriers with both financial resources and quantitative support that consumers are open to doing more with their mobile devices than just talk.
“Rev. A is allowing Verizon Wireless to look at LTE as its next step,” Lawrence said.
The CDG also said that some carriers were trialing Revision B of the CDMA standard, though no firm commercial launches were planned, and that a VoIP update for the current Rev. A standard was on the books for next year.
As for WiMAX’s shot at the title, the sense was that of an underdog. Suitor acknowledged that the current Xohm operations are not hitting the expected network speeds due to the carrier’s concerns over interoperability, but that optimized networks and devices would deliver superior performance.
Suitor said the technology will see its greatest adoption in emerging markets.
“WiMAX will see the most interest in emerging markets,” Suitor said. “It will allow new entrants or mobile operators to compete against incumbents.”
The few topics that all agreed on were that carriers looking to deploy any variation of 4G technology would need a large supply of clean spectrum to support the expected performance characteristics and that backhaul could be a limiting bottleneck to actual end-user experience.
“Spectrum availability will be key for any 4G play,” Lawrence said. “Carriers will need something in the order of 30 to 100 megahertz of spectrum.”
No one expects the battle for 4G to be a quick fight, and while there are still three known contenders for the title, those looking for the surest odds are betting on LTE.
