Amended from Wireless Week:

WiMAX and 3G are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Carriers can realize benefits with the right mix of the two technologies.

By Paul Sergeant
January 1, 2006
Wireless Week

As the WiMAX IEEE standard 802.16e prepares to conquer certification, technology innovators and operators alike are igniting a widespread commitment to bringing the promise of wireless broadband to life. In the midst of this fast race for deployment, however, the question lingers on how WiMAX will co-exist with other mobile technologies. Because the true promise of WiMAX is the fast, seamless and mobile delivery of large data, voice and video streams to a full array of end-user devices, you might believe its benefits sound familiar to 3G and question its necessity or its ability to succeed. The primary difference is, where 3G technology has struggled – such as with benchmark services and applications, backhaul and convergence – WiMAX can provide the necessary support to help augment 3G so it can overcome those challenges.

Such potential has caught the attention of the entire industry. Forward Concepts has predicted that sales of fixed and mobile WiMAX equipment will increase from $72 million in 2005 to more than $2 billion in 2009. What the smartest players have come to realize, whether they be operators, equipment makers or device manufacturers, is that WiMAX is no foe to 3G – it's the complementary key to evolving next-generation networks.

WiMAX Opportunities

Carriers, operators and service providers all recognize that to sustain their business long term, they need to devise the right mix of technologies at the right price to lock in subscriber loyalty, entice new customers and increase their average revenue per unit (ARPU). WiMAX can help them meet this challenge by reducing costs, extending coverage and opening doors to business opportunity for new market entrants.

Many operators lacking 3G spectrum have been constrained in offering advanced data services, but WiMAX can offer a cost-efficient and high-performing alternative means to delivering mobile rich-data services. 3G system operators also can benefit from WiMAX. By leveraging the efficient radio access and IP-core networks of WiMAX, these operators will be able to cost-effectively dedicate their current spectrum for circuit-based voice and narrowband data services, while using WiMAX to deliver large broadband IP-based multimedia to improve profit margins. That's because WiMAX can deliver high-speed data at costs under 5 percent of the cost of many current wireless networks.

Within wireline architectures, cable and DSL operators can use WiMAX to compete with cellular providers by offering full mobility and voice telephony, enabling the highly sought after quad play (video, voice, data and wireless). WiMAX can be deployed quickly without the need for extensive infrastructure elements, thereby solving the time and complexity issues associated with "last mile" delivery for rural areas and emerging markets where broadband has not been available, and eliminating the risks and costs associated with laying copper in the ground.

Service providers also can use WiMAX to add further mobility to an existing service. True seamless access and mobile transactions are not far off with the combination of backoffice billing systems, CRM applications and WiMAX. Moreover, it will spur new revenue potential by delivering the ability to track usage habits and apply this data to anticipate and deploy the new services customers really want.

Greenfield operators and new market entrants alike can benefit from the quick deployment and low cost infrastructure of WiMAX. New market entrants can cost-effectively establish competitive wireless mobility using higher spectrum to compete with operators that deploy service in the 2G and 3G spectrums, and the capacity of WiMAX to offer VoIP ensures that new entrants can offer a complete range of voice and data services for business and residential customers.

Path to Seamless Connections

WiMAX's ability to deliver new, cheaper, faster and better services to the market will hinge upon several factors. While approval of the 802.16e standard by the IEEE is a critical step, certification of the profile based on this standard, led by the WiMAX Forum, holds the key to its adoption. WiMAX profiles and interoperability certification will enable multi-vendor interoperability between access points, vendor devices and network technologies, including Wi-Fi, DSL and cable.

WiMAX will provide the seamless mobility people need to access applications at work, at home and in transit. This will be especially important to the growing mobile workforce. With WiMAX, these individuals can take advantage of complex applications such as using IP-based telephony for video conferencing from a hotel room, downloading equipment repair guides at a client site or even quickly downloading a feature-length movie on their handheld for viewing later.

While full-fledged mobile wireless broadband applications like these aren't expected to be readily available until 2007, over the next several months fixed WiMAX innovation will be aggressively deployed to complement technologies already in place, such as 2G and 3G cellular systems, circuit voice and higher-tier mobile broadband access services. The most common way: Universal mobility with voice and simple data will be carried on cellular spectrum with advanced high-speed data on WiMAX; and in big cities, WiMAX spectrum will be coverage-oriented much like hot zones.

Regardless of how it is adopted and what applications first take hold, WiMAX, as an IP-based technology, will provide more than just a strong platform for convergence – it will provide the pathway for success by giving people what they want, when and where they want it.