July 18, 2008

Wireless telecoms | Culture clash | Economist.com

Wireless telecoms | Culture clash | Economist.com

The next generation, 4G, of wireless network standards holds great promise and deployment of both WiMax and LTE technologies seems 'just around the corner.' This story by The Economist reports that efforts are underway to reduce the 'either/or' competitive standards fight that has been raging by making WiMax work with LTE. LTE seems to have come out on top of the standards battle as the world wide GSM camp...and Verizon and AT&T in the U.S.... have agreed this is their chosen technology.

Sprint/Clearwire and the computer guys and cable guys are in the WiMax camp and my guess is they have decided they cannot win the standards war. This may be because they are rapidly losing their 2-year USA deployment head start and the chance to recover their financial underpinning by winning 4G customers.

In any event, the speeds and features delivered by these technologies will really help rural areas like Vermont increase penetration, assuming the 'density deficit' still enables a viable revenue model.

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