1 edit | Compare wimax and HSPA, not wimax and LTE Let's be serious, wimax has at most demonstrated max thoroughput of 2-4 Mbps in mobile form. Yes, that's probably as fast or faster than current HSPA, but it will not be in the same category as LTE when it is deployed, from what I've seen of LTE. The US would benefit if we had a definitive mobile standard, therefore we could sell devices and phones without having to tie them to any one carrier. It's like CDMA, it's a stupid US proprietary technology that just acts as an inhibitor to innovation.
2-4 Mbps is not revolutionary, so I don't get why Wimax seems to be everyone's wireless networking dream come true... |
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| I agree, but next gen Wimax 802.16(m) will have LTE like capabilities and should be available around the time LTE is widespread in 2012. And it will be backward compatible with current mobile WiMAX installations. |
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1 edit | reply to mike12806
said by mike12806:Let's be serious, wimax has at most demonstrated max thoroughput of 2-4 Mbps in mobile form. That's the average throughput considering distance and obstructions. The devices are capable of 15Mbps or more and if you sat next to the tower, you maybe be able to get 15Mbps. Some early testers of Xohm have gotten 11-12Mbps.
Backhaul and spectrum will also be a bottleneck with nextgen rollouts than just the technology itself. ATT is talking up 20Mbps for HSPA but will they really provide enough backhaul to every site to avg 20Mbps for several users on the same site? Do they even have the spectrum for HSPA unless unless using 700mhz?
Sprint has about 100mhz spectrum per market for WiMAX. ATT has maybe 25Mhz in 700mhz and probably even less available in 800/1900 space. |
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| Well said. According to a friend of mine at Sprint, backhaul was the main reason for the delay in its WiMAX rollout. 3G and 4G systems need towers that have fiber or microwave solutions for backhaul to meet their bandwidth demands. A lot of Sprint's WiMAX tower rely on multiple T1 lines that run 1.544 Mbit/s per line. This isn't a lot and it limits how many users they can give a good user experience to. Sprint spectrum advantage will allow it to do better than AT&T who has less spectrum and presumably the same backhaul concerns.
HSPA+ (20 Mbps) will operate in the same frequencies its current HSPA does. AT&T and other GSM carriers also have the option to refarm some of their 2G GSM spectrum for HSPA rollouts. Some GSM carriers I think in Thailand and Brazil have already done this. |
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