Nortel’s carriers solutions VP sits down with Report on Wireless

Telecom industry analyst and consultant Mark Goldberg succinctly summed up last month's Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association's WiMAX conference in his closing remarks when he asked, "Why WiMAX? Why not?" Much has been written about the battle between LTE and WiMAX with proponents on both sides pushing their respective agenda. LTE is expected to be the victor in this battle reminiscent of BlueRay and HD DVDs or Beta and VHS because it seems to have the support of the majority of the carrier community. But with anticipated mass market availability in late 2011, it lags behind WiMAX which is already available in several markets around the world. In Canada, Primus Telecommunications Canada Inc. is currently testing mobile WiMAX equipment from Motorola Inc. and Alcatel-Lucent in the greater Toronto and Hamilton areas. Other pilots are already underway in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington DC. The CWTA's day-long Toronto event featured representatives from several key industry players, including Alvarion, Nortel Networks Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Redline Communications Inc. and Qualcomm but few offered more than corporate sales pitches.Nortel's VP of carrier solutions Alan Pritchard was one of the exceptions and was more than willing to leave the corporate comfort zone and discuss the implications of a technological battle between Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMAX. He sat down with Report on Wireless to discuss the future of WiMAX and the implications of Clearwire Corp. and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s recent decision to launch an US nationwide WiMAX network. Below is an edited transcript of the interview. RoW: In terms of launch dates WiMAX has a head start on LTE, but you've said that LTE is a natural evolution for most carriers. Where will suppliers put their investments?Alan Pritchard: It's not about speed; it's about where you want to go. If you look at an existing service provider that has a GSM network, the natural evolution is to LTE. It's the same thing with CDMA; all the inner-workings between CDMA and LTE are worked out. There is a natural evolution for that path.Who's going to do WiMAX? It tends to be more about emerging providers, companies who are looking to come up with a different model. Sprint is kind of the odd one, though. The other carriers are looking at a more natural evolution path, but Sprint is trying to set out its own.We wouldn't see any of the carriers at this point making the switch. I can see smaller start-up operations getting into this space, but for the larger carriers - Inukshuk Wireless aside - I just don't think it's in the near future. They've made heavy investments in 3G technology and it's just a much more natural evolution for these carriers to move on to LTE.RoW: Why do you think Sprint was motivated to take the less-traveled WiMAX route?AP: The motivation for Sprint is that WiMAX is happening earlier than LTE - it's happening now. LTE still has a couple of years before it hits the same spot. There's a window of time that Sprint will be able to offer the differentiated performance.RoW: The specifications of the two technologies are very similar, will there really be a notable difference in performance?AP: In our tests, we see view the two as very similar in terms of performance and characteristics. One thing about LTE and WiMAX is that it's not just about better speed; it's about latency - the time it takes for packets to go from your handset to that application server. In the 3GPP world - the current environment - there's a lot more networks and processes for it to go through. In the LTE and WiMAX world, there's a flattening of those networks and the number of nodes you're hoping through is much less, so your response time is quicker. In the short-term, Sprint will be able to offer these quicker response times. RoW: If LTE will eventually offer similar performance, how do you think Sprint will be able to differentiate itself in the market?AP: The expectation is that Sprint will be very aggressive in terms of getting subscribers onto the WiMAX network and getting it used. Sprint has tons of spectrum and they're going to get as much of that spectrum traffic built up as they can. As a result, they're going to go to a very open approach for application programming interfaces or APIs. This is starting out as very different than a voice network, but it can certainly get there. What we're talking about initially is not something that's going to go head-to-head with Bell Mobility on voice. It's going to get built up from an embedded connectivity model, where you're in situations where you buy a device or appliance and it has WiMAX embedded in it. There's a very robust ecosystem out there for WiMAX, being influenced by Intel and others. Another way they'll really start to see growth is through campus and enterprise applications. The way that Sprint is coming at this thing is with a very open approach. The way their zone was initially defined was with a very open approach, whereas today most of the other suppliers have a very walled-in garden approach. The expectation is that the underserved broadband market is absolutely going to be there and you'll be able to get there with WiMAX. You'll start to get that critical mass through the global and under developed areas soon.RoW: Will Sprint, or other WiMAX carriers, be able to compete on voice?AP: To get to a point to have fully mobile voice, you have to have a lot of devices. It's not practical until you have an acceptable number of launched devices. It will come, but I think the timing is still about two years away. You really need to have the ecosystem built up first, and that will come from the device manufacturers.RoW: Are there any implications of Sprint's move to WiMAX for LTE? Do you think Sprint's move is indicative of a shift to WiMAX technology?AP: LTE is the destination of the 3G world. LTE probably doesn't really care about Sprint's move because it's so big and massive. Our expectation is the large underserved broadband market will give WiMAX its real start and because of the number of players, the ecosystem and its open structure, it will become a relevant technology. Will it complete with GSM in five years? No, but it will certainly be relevant.

Nortel’s carriers solutions VP sits down with Report on Wireless

News | June 3, 2008

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