The race for 4G wireless internet is heating up. On one side is Verizon-backed LTE technology. The opposing corner sees Sprint driving the push for Clearwire’s WiMAX infrastructure. As a CLEAR retailer, I am hopeful that WiMAX will prevail. If not for two years, at least until the next year.
Basically, WiMAX is an extension of Wi-Fi. Instead of covering ten feet as in WiFi, WiMAX would cover ten miles. As for LTE, it is seen as more of an improvement of UMTS 3G technology.
As can be seen, WiMAX has a headstart as it has already rolled out in various countries around the globe. My home country of Malaysia has P1 WiMAX. The aforementioned Clearwire has been in business in Europe. In America, Clearwire is slowly providing various major cities with WiMAX. Chicago must be the biggest city to have WiMAX right now, along with Dallas and Philadelphia.
A major reason for the slow development of 4G in America, I think, is the monopoly of Comcast for cable internet. Other than that, many buildings, hotels, and coffee shops provide wi-fi hotspots. If one is not covered by cable or hotspots, there is always 3G. Therefore, the need for 4G was not as immanent as in Malaysia where we see DSL-based Streamyx time and again embarrassingly bottlenecked. Hence the emergence of various 3G modems from Celcom, Maxis and Mimos’ p1 WiMAX. As a contrast, cable internet is only just beginning to come out, first in Pahang.
Coming back to the debate of LTE vs WiMAX, the author in this website sees LTE emerging victorious. His reason is the fact that LTE is a more natural evolution and upgrade of present UMTS infrastructure. On top of that, backing LTE is Verizon, a far larger telecom company than WiMAX-backing Sprint. However, an excellent comment below the article suggests otherwise. Technologically superior, WiMAX has been widely adopted worldwide (see list here), and will take an early lead in USA. Sprint too, is in a revival of sorts whereas Verizon has lacked creative marketing of late.
I will look back on this debate as being an active participant in pushing for WiMAX at the local level through CLEAR and my retail site, onlinesuperfast.com (aka 4gwirelessdeals.com and clearinchicago.com). Having said that, as a retailer, I can also offer LTE-based solutions in the future too. Competition always benefit us.