爱华网Wirelesstelecoms
Cultureclash
Jul 17th2008
From The Economist print edition
As “thirdgeneration” (3G) networks proliferate, the focus shifts to4G
WHAT would thetechnology industry be without standards wars? Like a city withoutsex, some might argue. But not all fights are winner-take-allbattles like the one between VHS and Betamax in videotapes, orBlu-ray and HD DVD in high-definition video discs. Sometimes thereneed not be a loser, and the din of battle may drown out the realissues—as in the fight between WiMAX and LTE.
These are themain contenders for the next generation of wireless networks, knownas “fourth generation” (4G) networks. Many equipment-makers arealready working on 4G technology, even though consumers in manycountries have yet to experience the 3G sort. And hardly a weekpasses without news from the battlefront. This week ELRO, a Danishutility, awarded a contract for a nationwide WiMAX network inDenmark; and Verizon Wireless, an American operator, said it wouldlaunch an LTE network in 2010.
Both 4Gtechnologies promise wireless nirvana: fast, ubiquitous broadband.Once radio chips are cheap enough, they will crop up not just inhandsets and laptops, but in devices such as digital cameras andelectricity meters, which are unconnected today. But the telecomsand computer industries have very different ideas about how thisshould be done, and this explains the split between WiMAX and LTE(which are technically similar). WiMAX is an attempt by thecomputer industry to export its way of doing things to the telecomsindustry—and LTE is the response.
WiMAX’s maincheerleader is Intel, the world’s biggest chipmaker, which wants toremain dominant as computing goes mobile. Since 2002 it has roundedup a coalition of firms, each with its own interest in seeing WiMAXsucceed. Google, for instance, wants to get online advertisementsonto mobile devices. For Sprint Nextel, an embattled Americanwireless operator, it offers the chance of a comeback.
Intel’svision, and that of its allies, is that wireless broadband shouldbe as “open” as the internet. WiMAX devices need not be subsidisedby operators and will be sold in retail stores. The intellectualproperty will be shared. Consumers will pay a flat fee for access,and can then use whatever online services they want. Commoditisingthe transport of data will, the WiMAX camp hopes, boost demand forIntel’s chips, Google’s services and so on.
What Intel isto WiMAX, Ericsson is to LTE, which stands for Long Term Evolution.As its name suggests, it is meant to be an update to today’smobile-network technology. This makes it attractive not just toEricsson, the world’s biggest maker of such gear, but also to othervendors and to most mobile operators: they can build on theirexisting investments. Another member of the LTE camp is Qualcomm,an American chipmaker that owns vital chunks of intellectualproperty in wireless telecoms.
Like the WiMAXalliance, the LTE camp stands for a certain way of carving up thepie, which critics call “closed” because it may limit consumers’choice. Operators, they worry, will control which devices canconnect to their networks and will try to keep users within a“walled garden” of services, as they do today, in an effort tocapture more of their users’ online spending.
Until lastautumn, WiMAX seemed to have a lot of momentum. Its standards hadbeen agreed on, equipment-makers were already making the gear andsome 300 operators across the world were building networks (albeitmostly of the “fixed wireless” kind, where the wireless link is asubstitute for a tethered broadband connection). In America Sprintand Clearwire, a wireless start-up, had started building nationwideWiMAX networks. WiMAX, it seemed, was ready to go, whereas LTE wasstill under development.
But since thenthe tide has turned. Sprint and Clearwire ran into financial andtechnical problems. Other operators reported that the technologywas not ready for prime time. Auctions of radio spectrum suitablefor WiMAX have been delayed. And the LTE camp has fought back. Itstechnology recently received the official backing of theinfluential GSM Association, a global club of wireless operators.And Verizon and AT&T, America’s largest operators,said they would adopt LTE.
Now everybodyseems to think that WiMAX will be no more than a “nichetechnology”, in the somewhat self-serving words of Hakan Eriksson,Ericsson’s chief technology officer. Frost &Sullivan, a market-research firm, predicts that if spectrumauctions and commercial roll-outs do not happen this year, “themarket scope for mobile WiMAX on a global basis will beinsignificant.” Nortel, another big equipment-maker and an earlyWiMAX backer, estimates that its market share will be 10% at bestby the end of 2012, and recently said that it would now focus onLTE.
It would bewrong, however, to count WiMAX out just yet. It will find a placein developing countries, where today’s wireless technologies areless entrenched. Tata Communications, an Indian firm, for instance,intends to build the world’s largest WiMAX network. And Intel andits allies still seem willing to spend heavily to jump-start thetechnology. Intel’s venture-capital arm has invested in WiMAX firmsaround the world and will continue to do so, says Siavash Alamouti,one of Intel’s WiMAX evangelists. Intel, Google and three Americancable operators are investing $3.2 billion in Clearwire, which ismerging with Sprint’s WiMAX operation, called Xohm.
The newentity, still called Clearwire but majority-owned by Sprint, hasabout two years to prove the value of WiMAX, says Peter Jarich ofCurrent Analysis, another market-research firm. This will be hard.Clearwire hopes to launch in September in Baltimore, but furtherdelays would not come as a surprise. In the meantime, operators areupgrading their 3G networks to reach similar accessspeeds.
Yet even ifClearwire fails and WiMAX is confined to a niche, the efforts ofIntel and its allies will not have been in vain. The LTE camp hasalready taken more than one leaf from WiMAX’s book, says OlivierBaujard, chief technologist at Alcatel-Lucent, another bigequipment-maker, which has a foot in both camps. The first LTEnetworks will now be deployed much faster than expected, perhaps assoon as 2009. Makers of LTE gear have also agreed to faircross-licensing of intellectual property (although, predictably,Qualcomm has refused to join either patent club). And mobileoperators appear to have realised that they need to open up theirnetworks.
Thisrapprochement may explain why there is now talk of merging the twotechnologies, by making WiMAX part of the LTE standard. Even SeanMaloney, Intel’s Mr WiMAX, says “they ought to be harmonised”.Although this is still unlikely, it would not be a bad outcome.Subscribers could then take advantage of internet-like opennesscombined with the robustness of wireless technology—without havingto put up with the inconvenience of two differentstandards.
