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June 3, 2008

Intel Calls for WiMax, LTE Convergence

By Glenn Fleishman

Intel’s sales and marketing head calls for unified WiMax, LTE for 4G: Sean Maloney has been a driving force behind WiMax, and he makes a good point. With Qualcomm-driven standards not in the running for U.S. and European cell data evolution—nor in many other parts of the world—there’s not much of a patent or single-company-owned technology debate here. Really, it’s a question about evolution and interoperability. AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are committed to LTE; Sprint and Clearwire to WiMax. WiMax technology is available today; LTE could be in the 2010-2012 timeframe for real deployments. WiMax can push 10 to 20 Mbps or more depending on spectrum allocation and other issues; LTE is estimated to offer 50 to 100 Mbps downstream. Maloney said 80 percent of the two technologies were the same and Motorola says it will reuse 85 percent of what was developed for WiMax in its LTE design. Sounds very rational. With Intel’s backing, carriers might go for it, because it could mean having every laptop shipped already containing an LTE receiver.

Posted by Glennf at June 3, 2008 11:45 AM

Categories: Mobile WiMax, cellular, future technologies

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