4G World: Motorola’s Brda says LTE won’t kill WiMax

This year’s Yankee Group 4G World is all-inclusive of 4G technologies WiMax and long-term evolution (LTE), but whether the two can co-exist has long been a topic of debate – one that is largely irrelevant, according to Motorola (NYSE:MOT). Operators need to forget the technology dispute and focus on meeting consumers’ new needs, and equipment vendors need to continue to drive devices forward, Bruce Brda, senior vice president and general manager of Motorola’s wireless networks business, told attendees in his keynote speech today.

Motorola, which unveiled its new WiMax and LTE wares before the show last week, along with Samsung and Huawei through their Clearwire WiMax contracts, is one of the few vendors still actively working on WiMax. At the same time, however, the company has put more energy into LTE, developing a portfolio of products – many building on its existing WiMax products – and taking part in active trials in Europe with Vodafone and other operators.

Most carriers today have already chosen their side as well. Although networks haven’t come online yet, LTE has a large base of mobile operator supporters, but WiMax has been endorsed by a diverse group of new entrants to wireless broadband, Brda said. AT&T plans to pursue LTE in 2011, and Verizon is being aggressive in its deployment plans after it spent the last year conducting joint trials of LTE with Vodafone in both the US and Europe.

Brda stressed the need for 4G technologies as a way to bring broadband penetration to the masses and drive economic growth. Reductions in the cost per byte coupled with speed will drive new applications, he said, citing telematics, in-car solutions, e-readers, machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, true mobile IPTV and next-generation public safety networks as potential applications. A specific example he pointed to was SP AusNet , an Australian energy company leading the drive for advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) on the smart grid. The company opted to use WiMax because of the reach it provided for its plans to upgrade 600,000 homes and businesses.

The SP AusNet example demonstrates the mindset that telecom service providers need to adopt, according to Brda: to focus on the need and use whatever technology best fulfills it – without getting caught up in the debate. “SP AusNet needed smart energy,” Brda said. “They started with the goal of energy conservation and worked their way down to the technology. It was just a way to meet their needs.”

Both LTE and WiMax are viable options, he added, and they will end up co-existing.This is the viewpoint that Motorola supports, out of three that Brda posed. The alternatives – that LTE kills WiMax or the two converge – he discredited for various reasons. LTE would have to have enormous momentum right out of the gate and launch much faster than anticipated, while WiMax would have to stall out for LTE to successfully kill it off. LTE would also have to include strong fixed and mobile capabilities and be compelling enough to attract millions of consumers to change out their existing 3G devices for LTE ones. If this happened, the only benefactors would be manufacturers of LTE-only products and operators seeking to delay new entrants, he said.

“It won’t happen; WiMax has too much momentum,” he said. “There are over 500 proponents today, many without LTE. There are nearly 500 products across 88 vendors available today.” The competition will advance LTE much more than the technology would on its own, Brda said.

Brda also pointed to other Motorola customers for examples on how WiMax is benefiting consumers. In Malaysia, REDTone used it to make broadband accessible to everyone. In Mexico, Axtel is using it primarily for VoIP and high-speed broadband data. Unwired in Fiji is pushing educational resources into remote areas over WiMax. And, in the US, Northern Michigan University is using WiMax for its students and the community at large. In all cases, no one mentions the WiMax network, they only mention the benefits they receive, Brda said.

Brda also announced in his keynote that Moto’s Home & Networks Mobility business shipped its one millionth WiMAX customer premises equipment (CPE) device, more than doubling the total number of units it had shipped six months ago. "This growth in WiMAX CPE shipments is a significant milestone for us, but also is indicative of the momentum WiMAX has gained over the past year," he said.