WIMax chip-maker Beceem sees opportunity in Yota LTE switch

Yota, the first mobile WiMax operator, has jumped on the long-term evolution bandwagon, which one would think would have WiMax equipment and silicon vendors worried. Beceem Communications, however, has a different perspective on the development.

Lars Johnsson, vice president of business development for Beceem, acknowledged that Yota’s plans to pursue LTE is a blow to WiMax’s global image, but he believes it will have little impact on the overall market for WiMax devices. In fact, Johnsson said, it creates a new opportunity for Beceem to sell dual-mode WiMax-LTE chipset to operators sporting dual networks.

Beceem unveiled its planned LTE-WIMax chipset at Mobile World Congress earlier this year, with plans to target it at a few niche markets, such as WiMax operators looking for devices that can roam on other 4G networks and mobile virtual network operators splitting time between 4G and LTE networks. But Yota’s decision to launch LTE side by side with WiMax creates an even bigger market opportunity for Beceem to sell dual-mode chips that can bridge both networks, Johnsson said. “Our product road map was meant to address, and even take advantage of, situations like this,” he said.

Johnsson said it is important to note that Yota isn’t dumping WiMax for LTE, but rather identifying the best technologies for the spectrum it holds. Its current WiMax networks are built on unpaired spectrum bands at 2.5 GHz, mirroring the time division duplexing (TDD) deployments of Clearwire and other global WiMax operators. The new LTE networks it plans to launch are over the 2.6 GHz split-channel band, which carriers all over Europe are targeting for frequency division duplexing LTE. Rather than departing from the standard 4G paths, Johnsson said, Yota is closely sticking with them, deploying the LTE on spectrum optimal for LTE and WiMax on spectrum optimal for WiMax.

Other WiMax proponents such as Clearwire have broached the possibility of switching from WiMax to LTE, using a TDD variant of LTE, and Johnsson acknowledged that is a distinct possibility in the future. But he said Beceem believes that possibility is still a long way off, giving WiMax much more potential growth. Even if all of the mobile WiMax operators move to LTE, the majority of WiMax operators are using WiMax for fixed broadband access. Because they aren’t interested in roaming or a huge device ecosystem they have little or no incentive to pursue LTE, Johnsson said.

“I doubt Packet One in Malaysia cares about roaming with Asia and the rest of the world,” Johnsson said. “It just wants access to good, inexpensive equipment, which WiMax delivers.”