14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to the future of the wireless technologies most of the industry players would rather go for LTE (Long Term Evolution) rather than choose WiMAX, which is just another face of the future 4G networks that are expected to start rolling out during the ongoing year.
However, both WiMAX and LTE have their own adopters, and upon talking about the former we instantly think of Sprint (and Clearwire, which is backed by names like Intel), while the latter seems to have been adopted by carriers like Verizon, while phone makers such as Nokia, Motorola or Samsung also expressed their interest in it.
Since 4G is upon us, companies have to choose a side, and it seems that the odds would rather favor LTE at the moment, even if Sprint is working on the deployment of a nationwide WiMAX network, as the world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia (a member of the WiMAX Forum itself), is reported to have stated recently that WiMAX was a doomed technology.
Financial Times reports that Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s head of sales and manufacturing, said recently that WiMAX resembled a lot Sony’s Betamax video format, which has been “defeated” by the VHS, and that the 4G technology would share the same fate with the obsolete video format. Since Nokia announced recently that it would embrace the LTE technology, and we already learned that the company ended the life cycle of one of its WiMAX devices back in January, one would fully understand its position on the matter.
“I don’t think the future is very promising [for WiMAX]. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market. I see exactly the same thing happening here,” Anssi Vanjoki is quoted to have said.
On the other hand, not everybody seems to share the same feeling with Nokia, and here we’re talking about those companies behind Clearwire. As a matter of fact, Julie Coppernoll, WiMAX marketing director at Intel, is reported to have said exactly the opposite, “We think WiMAX is here to stay. WiMax networks have a coverage area of 400 million people and are projected to reach double that by next year.”
Given the current state of facts, one would easily see that we're to witness a 4G technology battle in the not-so-distant future. Perhaps that won't be such a bad thing after all, as the two standards will probably be refined and improved so as to offer all the best speeds in order to become successful, and those who will benefit the most here will be the end-users. And while Nokia says that LTE “will be the major 4G technology worldwide by 2015,” we should sit tight and wait to see what will happen with WiMAX in the meantime.