Barry strikes back

As Barry West, 4G president and chief technology officer for Sprint, began his keynote address at the Wireless Communications Association's conference, he couldn't help taking a jab at his chosen technology's detractors.

Referring to lessons learned during preparation for his citizenship exam in 2006, West told the packed conference room he'd been thinking a lot about the events of 1776. “I wonder if the founding fathers said, ‘To hell with the revolution, let's have a long-term evolution,’” he said.

The implication was that Sprint's new Xohm network will be an immediate revolution in mobile, while long-term evolution (LTE) proponents — as its name implies — will have to wait a while. The joke may be corny, but the intent is serious. As the man in charge of the most publicized WiMAX deployment in the world, West has become an evangelist for the technology. But as rival LTE gains momentum and carrier commitments, its proponents have become bolder in their criticisms of WiMAX. In West's trots across the globe to promote his vision of a mobile broadband network, he increasingly finds himself defending its underlying technology.

The tit-for-tat came to a head at Mobile World Congress and CTIA Wireless, where Arun Sarin, CEO of Vodafone, called for WiMAX to be folded into the LTE standard. In an interview after the keynote, West said that he agrees with the principle of a single standard, but that he believes practical principle has been overcome by politics.

“There are many, many agendas; it's not clear why people can't take a pragmatic view,” he said. “It's always rolling WiMAX into LTE. Why on Earth isn't anyone saying ‘WiMAX is here, and it works. Why don't we roll LTE into WiMAX?’”

West is under no illusions that WiMAX will overcome LTE and become the de facto 4G standard. “There's too much momentum around LTE,” West said. “The two will coexist.”

But he also finds the prospect of WiMAX and LTE becoming evolutionary steps in the same standard an equally ridiculous notion, even if it were done on the WiMAX community's terms. The implication of such a proposal is that LTE is inherently superior to WiMAX, West said.

“What is LTE going to bring that WiMAX doesn't already have?” he asked. “There isn't a magic something in LTE that isn't in WiMAX.”