4G World 2009

4G World 2009, Chicago

The "4G World" conference and expo concluded Friday at the McCormick Place
convention center in downtown Chicago.  The show, produced by Trends Media
& the Yankee group, featured over 150 speakers and 250 sponsors and exhibitors –
including vendors, operators and application developers from the mobile and
wireless communities.

This year was the first show with the new "4G" moniker, having broadened its
scope to include all next-generation wireless technologies.  The integrated
event included content from its traditional "WiMAX World" and "Mobile Internet
World" shows as well as summits on Network Backhaul and Femtocell/Picocell
technologies.  The event was also co-located with the Wireless
Communications Association International’s (WCAI) 15th Annual international
Symposium and featured sessions on broadband and wireless policy as well as
tracks on wireless broadband in emerging markets.
 

Expo Floor, 4G World 2009

While there were a handful of product announcements from Alvarion, Dragonwave
and others, the main theme of this year’s show was on the growing level of
maturity of the 4G ecosystem and the tremendous amount of growth and
opportunities that lie ahead.  This was evidenced by the diversity of the
keynotes with presentations by traditional WiMAX and wireless broadband
companies along with those by mobile vendors including Ericsson and Qualcomm.

Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President & Head of Product Radio at Ericsson espoused the
benefits of 3G & HSPA technologies and their enormous scale advantages, while
Tzvika Friedman, CEO at Alvarion spoke of the "openness" of WiMAX , its
availability today and the ability it has to make an impact on the world.

Bill Morrow, CEO at Clearwire provided a keynote on the second day, reiterating
the possibilities when people have unrestricted access to a true multi-megabit
wireless broadband network.

Morrow then proceeded to show a video of a drive test comparing two iPhones –
one using a 3G connection and one using WiMAX (via a portable Wi-Fi router
connected to the Clearwire network).  The iPhone on the Clearwire network
experienced performance 3-5 times faster than the one on the 3G network. 
"Only a 4G network can unlock the true potential of device like the iPhone,"
said Morrow.
 

Bill Morrow, Clearwire, 4G World 2009

Morrow expressed that much more work was needed from the ecosystem community
including lower power and multi-radio technologies, new applications from
developers, new devices and more movements towards Pico & Femto cells.

Earlier in the week, Clearwire announced their WiMAX Innovation Network in
Silicon Valley was open for developers.  The developer network, which is a
precursor to commercial service planned for the San Francisco Bay Area in 2010,
will cover more than 20 square miles in Santa Clara, Mountain View and parts of
downtown Palo Alto, California.  More information on the program can be

found here.

WiMAX & LTE

Of course, no wireless show would be complete without some healthy debate on
WiMAX and LTE.  Bruce Brda, Sr.  VP & GM for Wireless Networks, Home &
Networks Mobility for Motorola gave a nice presentation titled "LTE and WiMAX –
Convergence or Competition?"

In his presentation he outlined three possible scenarios: (1) LTE Kills WiMAX,
(2) The technologies converge, or (3) the technologies co-exist.

For LTE to kill WiMAX, Brda argues WiMAX progress would have to stall and LTE
would have to accelerate.  Also, WiMAX up until now has served more as a
fixed broadband service, and LTE would have to offer a compelling reason for
operators to switch.  Brda also points to the strength of the WiMAX
ecosystem with over 500 member companies, over 500 devices planned or in
development, and the 802.16m developments underway that provides an evolution
path for mobile WiMAX operators.
 

Bruce Brda, Motorola, 4G World 2009

Brda also believes that there is little chance the technologies will converge
into a single standard due to the many differences in the origin and development
of the technologies including industry models, technology differences, spectrum,
support for legacy systems and device ecosystems.

Instead, Brda believes the technologies will co-exist, just as UNIX and Windows
exist as operating systems, and Playstation and X-Box exist as gaming platforms.

WiMAX Momentum Continues

Last week, leading WiMAX chip company Beceem announced that they had shipped
more than 1 million terminal chips in the third quarter of 2009.  The
company indicated that mobile device shipments are accelerating in the US,
Japan, Russia, Mexico, Malaysia and many other countries.

"We are witnessing a major revolution with the rapid adoption of commercial
services offering 4G mobile internet and broadband services globally, and we are
excited to play a key role in enabling the underlying device ecosystem," said
Babu Mandava, CEO of Beceem. 

In a keynote on the third day, Russian WiMAX Operator Yota provided an update on
their latest progress.  Yegor Ivanov, Director of Business Development for
Yota stated that the company had added 100,000 subscribers in the first 3 months
since the network was launched and is on track to double that number in the next
2 months.  The company has also already covered 23 million people with
1,000 base stations in 3 Russian cities.

Besides the phenomenal growth, what was interesting was how people were using
the Yota network.  Given the capabilities of WiMAX, the average traffic per
user was 9.7GB per month, 20% higher than the average ADSL/cable broadband usage
in Moscow and Saint Pertersburg.  The service is sold using simple
flat-rate pricing with unlimited usage starting at $16USD per month. 
Subscribers also have access to Yota’s extensive entertainment content including
music from Sony/BMG, Universal Music, EMI and others.

Conclusions

While the standards battles between WiMAX & LTE continue, the dust is begging to
settle and the operator’s choices between these two technologies is coming into
sharper focus.  Berge Ayvazian, Conference Co-Chair for 4G World described
it this way:   "WiMAX is coming form the IEEE and consumer electronics
industry is about making broadband ‘mobile’ – the ability to take your broadband
experience with you.  LTE is coming from the 3GPP and cellular worlds is
about delivering ‘mobile broadband’ – with more emphasis on mobility."

While LTE may garner the lion’s share several years from now as a mass-market
mobile data technology, WiMAX has 2 distinct advantages: (1) Openness of the
network, and (2) its time to market advantage.

For operators with no legacy systems and with access to the spectrum available
and funding to build the network, WiMAX makes the most sense and offers a key
advantage relative to other available technologies.  The Openness of WiMAX
and support of companies like Google in their partnership with Clearwire will
also help drive innovation.

For operators with an existing mobile voice business and those offering 3G
services today, the migration to LTE will be the natural choice, assuming they
are able to provide good quality of services to their customers until they can
migrate.  Some vendors such as KDDI in Japan are hedging their bets –
backing WiMAX with its investments in UQ Communications as well as developing
its own LTE network.

AT&T’s recent shift in strategy away from extending its current 3G network with
HSPA+ and instead deciding to accelerate its migration to LTE is an interesting
development for HSPA networks in general.  With Verizon pushing
aggressively to complete its LTE build-out, AT&T most likely did not want to
risk having a slower network or to sink additional money into a network that it
would eventually have to replace.

We should expect to see more WiMAX devices in the coming months as the ecosystem
continues to mature and more markets are deployed.