3G or 4G: Intel betting on WiMAX
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 18 December 2009, 15:06 IST   |    3 Comments
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3G or 4G: Intel betting on WiMAX
New Delhi: Siavash M Alamouti, Intel Fellow and Chief Technology Officer of the Mobility Wireless Group, believes that there is a lot of misinformation floating around when it comes to Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology, reports Business Standard. "Those who swear by competing technologies like 3G and LTE, say that WiMAX (also known as a 4G technology) brings no value but this is not true. It's a proven technology," says Alamouti. Alamouti's visit to India comes at a time when the government has set the reserve price for 3G spectrum at 3,500 crore and 1,750 crore for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum. BWA spectrum is needed for Wimax-based services. WiMAX is generally said to deliver 70 megabits per second over 50 kilometers but can either operate at higher bitrates or over longer distances. "We will sharpen our focus on growth markets like India to offer WiMAX solutions for mobile devices and PCs. We may also invest in spectrum and operators (but unlike in countries like Sweden and Bangladesh - where Intel has bid for spectrum directly to run WiMAX services with other partners, the model in India will involve partnerships with telecom players. Intel, though, will not become a service provider to push WiMAX). Of course, we continue to be a chip player," says Alamouti. Alamouti is responsible for all wireless standards with a product roadmap at Intel - the WiMAX Forum, IEEE 802.16, WiFi Alliance and IEEE 802.11. "WiMAX is an established technology," says the Intel Fellow who holds over 20 patents in the areas of wireless communications and wireless systems design. But why is WiMAX not being taken seriously? Alamouti says, "When we ask mobile operators (in India too), they tell us that LTE is on the cards so why go the WiMAX way? Now LTE is a long-term evolution project. But we're being told it's ready. How can that be? Being in the wireless field, I can see no such signs or successful deployments (there was only a recent trial in Norway)." Many countries are seeing WiMAX as a way to introduce voice services to remote locations - India, Africa, Eastern Europe and even rural areas in the U.S. are now leading WiMAX adoption. "WiMAX is certainly a cheap way of delivering voice," says Infonetics analyst Richard Webb. India is now the largest global opportunity for WiMAX, according to an Infonetics report, with remote U.S. installations following next. Africa also leads WiMAX growth, and again voice plays a critical component. Eventhough, African countries have lack of funding, they now have 80 WiMAX networks, according to Infonetics. Demand for voice and broadband are driving the upsurge in WiMAX connectivity. In India, Indian telecom operators like BSNL, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications piloted WiMAX, but WiMAX Forum is optimistic and pegs the user base at over 27.5 million users (around 19 million connections) by 2012. The study predicts that around 70 percent of WiMAX subscribers will use mobile and portable WiMAX devices to access broadband internet services by 2012. However, industry estimates peg the 3G users base at nearly 90 million during the same period. ABI Research expects the total number of subscribers to be around two million in January 2010.

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