Friday, 3 April 2009

WiMAX = Betamax

Putting the cat among the pigeons yesterday was Nokia EVP Anssi Vanjoki who equated WiMAX with Betamax, the failed home video standard. The analogy is actually a reasonable one. The dominance of VHS was due to commercial forces, rather than technical superiority. This happens time and again in technology markets: it is commercial imperatives that determine choice of technology, not the technology itself. Think Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD or even GSM vs CDMA. The examples are numerous. Likewise with WiMAX vs LTE. Any operator that already has a 3G, or even GSM, network installed will find it cheaper to deploy LTE (although still very expensive). Any company thinking of deploying a greenfield WiMAX solution into an established market will face tremendous competitive pressure from the LTE operators. WiMAX has a potential home in markets with inferior 3G coverage but LTE will benefit from the scale offered by the migration of GSM and CDMA operators over the next 5 years.
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5 comments:

  1. Allan4 April 2009 at 21:22

    This talk of LTE makes me wonder where the spectrum for LTE will come from. Are there to be more spectrum auctions in the UK?

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  2. Paul6 April 2009 at 04:11

    Allan, you're either a WUM or just dropped-off from Mars if you're not aware of a huge chunk of 2.5/2.6GHz that OfCom have threatened - for the last 3 years - to extract every penny of potential future profits by auctioning off to all-comers.

    It's potentially 70MHz of conventional FDD LTE spectrum (current 3G spectrum is 60MHz of FDD) with disruptive WiMAX pitted against the incumbents, whom OfCom has allowed to filibuster with demands that the existing condtions for GSM sprectum be relaxed to the same framework as those proposed for new spectrum releases.

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  3. Matt Hatton6 April 2009 at 10:55

    ...and lets not forget the digital dividend spectrum (790-862 MHz) that should be awarded "soon"

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  4. Paul7 April 2009 at 19:06

    .....starting right at the top of the US 700MHz band spectrum, where they placed 'public safety' in the auction last year. Hepta-band USB anyone?

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  5. Allan Jones11 April 2009 at 15:40

    At the risk of revealing more Martian tendencies, I notice that sub 1 GHz spectrum looks as though it might be freed up from two directions - the digital dividend, mentioned above by Mark, and the wresting of spectrum from Vodafone and O2. Political momentum seems to be directed towards using sub 1 GHz spectrum for delivering broadband to rural areas.

    I'm curious about whether the delivery of broadband wirelessly to rural areas is likely to be by LTE or HSPA. LTE, presumably, has a lot of technical advantages, but risks alienating people who've already invested in devices.

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