Commentary
Does The GSMA's Endorsement Of LTE Mean WiMax Is Dead?
It's now official, the GSM Association has given its approval to 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as the fourth-generation (4G) technology for GSM. Is this a sign that WiMax is toast?It's now official, the GSM Association has given its approval to 3GPP Long-Term Evolution (LTE) as the fourth-generation (4G) technology for GSM. Is this a sign that WiMax is toast?There is a growing perception that WiMax is in big trouble. Much of this WiMax skepticism was fueled by the dissolution of Sprint's WiMax marriage with Clearwire last week. As my colleague Rob Preston pointed out, this can't be good for WiMax's future.
I remember attending wireless trade shows two years ago where everyone claimed that WiMax would be 4G. At the time, it seemed almost certain. Intel had put together a formidable-looking global ecosystem and carriers were seriously eyeing the technology. Then, Sprint, a major U.S. telecom, signed up for the WiMax party, and things looked almost inevitable.
More Mobility Insights
White Papers
- The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet's Good Bones - by BlackBerry
- New Visual and Wizard-Driven Paradigms for Exploring Data and Developing Analytic Workflows
Reports
- Mobility’s Next Challenge: 8 Steps to a Secure Environment
- Time to Move: How to Ensure 'Mobility' Translates to 'Agility'
Webcasts
- Maximize ROI with Database Consolidation onto Private Clouds
- The ABC's of Cloud Computing in the Midmarket
Flashforward two years latter, those predictions look increasingly irrelevant. Sprint is now crouching its committments to WiMax in vague "legalese" and Clearwire is out in the cold. And what about the rest of those carriers who looked so hot to trot for mobile WiMax Where are they now?
As I pointed out last week, WiMax may need Google's help if its going to survive. But that would mean that Google would have to get into the service provider game.
Despite the analysts and industry insiders who claim Google will not become a carrier, Google will likely participate in the upcoming spectrum auction, so who knows, maybe Google will save WiMax.
What do you think? Is WiMax now dead? Or does it still have a fighting chance, even as rival technologies like LTE emerge as legitimate paths for 4G?
Related Reading
| To upload an avatar photo, first complete your Disqus profile. | View the list of supported HTML tags you can use to style comments. | Please read our commenting policy. | |
|
|
T-Shirt Giveaway: Each week we're selecting one great comment from our readers. The author of the comment will receive an InformaitonWeek Community t-shirt. So get posting! |
Subscribe to RSSResource Links
This Week's Issue
Technology Whitepapers
- Mobile BI: Actionable Intelligence for the Agile Enterprise
- Creating the Enterprise-Class Tablet Environment - by Yankee Group
- The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet's Good Bones - by BlackBerry
- Red Alert: Why Tablet Security Matters - by BlackBerry
- New Visual and Wizard-Driven Paradigms for Exploring Data and Developing Analytic Workflows
Featured Resource
This white paper focuses on the critical need to manage outbound content sent via various avenues including email, Instant Messages, text messages, tweets, and Facebook posts. Read More












