Yota switches to LTE, dumps WiMAX

By siliconindia   |   Friday, 28 May 2010, 19:27 IST
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Bangalore: Yota has announced it plans to switch to Long Term Evolution (LTE) for its ongoing network rollout in Russia, stumping the WiMAX technology, through which they used to connect over 3,00,000 subscribers. Yota has been signing up customers to its 10 mb/sec mobile internet service covering five cities but the company has now moved on saying that the future is in the technology provided LTE on which they are going to invest $2billion for the migration of its network from WiMAX roots, reports Bill Ray from Register. Technical experts feel that, the reason for WiMAX's success is that it's owned by Intel.On the other hand LTE is now the most preferable destination for all mobile operators because of the intellectual property invested in it but factually WiMAX standard was completed first. The total investment during 2010 is expected to be in the region of $100 million. Yota has signed contracts for delivery of 1,000 base stations, but declined to say who the equipment makers were. When Ofcom tried to sell off WiMAX-friendly radio spectrum in the UK, Intel could not push the standard into telcos who repeatedly blocked recognition of the standard and presented legal actions against WiMAX. The new LTE network will operate in Kazan, Novosibirsk and Samara, with Moscow and St. Petersburg to follow by the end of the following year. Clearwire said that it has competitors deploying their own LTE networks, so WiMAX could be something of a differentiator. According to Clearwire, LTE is the future but it is not following Yota's way.