| reply to iansltx
Re: Sprint's pricing plans don't matter. HSPA has a much longer lifespan than CDMA/EVDO. Why are Verizon and Sprint rushing to get 4G out? Because EVDO Rev. A is the end of the line for the CDMA family. Rev. A maxes around 3.1mbps, while there are current 21mbps HSPA networks and it has the capability to peak around 42mbps.
So does AT&T need LTE bad? No. But when 3G starts getting phased out, you're going to have ~95% of the country covered in LTE between Verizon and AT&T on the 700mhz block, and Sprint will have their WiMax sitting on 2.5GHz spectrum, which not only has bad distance reach but has crappy building penetration.
WiMAX is good technology for mobile broadband, but it isn't made to be deployed on a nationwide scale in a country as big as the US. |
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Comcast
| I totally agree that EvDO Rev. A is a dead end at this point. However it's a much more reliable/speedy dead end than the "evolving" HSPA 3.6 or 7.2. Which is the only thing AT&T is rolling out right now. T-Mobile is doing 21 Mbps HSPA+, true, but that's T-Mobile's take on 4G at this point. Compared with the competition, that's how the tech fits in.
About LTE, I'll pass judgment when a network gets on the ground. WiMAX is here, provides up to 15/5 speeds and works well in both fixed and mobile situations. It will also be built into more CE stuff than LTE because its an IEEE standard rather than a 3GPP one. There are more WiFi-equipped device models than CDMA and GSM ones, combined.
One other thing about WiMAX int he US: there's TONS of spectrum to play around with. Contrast this with LTE, which has a limited frequency range. This makes WiMAX good for terrestrial broadband/WiFi (2.4 GHz) alternatives, and LTE good for "data card" use cases, where a rovider offers a service that doesn't require a large antenna for rural reception but can't be used more than a few GB per month.
All that said, the real question for 4G techs is how you're going to bring bandwidth to the towers. a 100 Mbps connectio to the tower does me very little good if it's 2 Mbps to the internet. Sure, LAN parties would be sweet but that's about it.
I'd love to be proved wrong with WiFiOS from Verizon, but I doubt that'll happen. |
