LTE and Wimax Future Technologies
LTE, technically called 3GPP Long Term Evolution and Wimax are two separate technologies that would offer a serious challenge to even the superfast wired broadband connections in the future. The former couple of technologies are advocates of wireless broadband services that are expected to deliver data speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Such speeds are good enough to enable high-end services like high definition TV on televisions, mobile phones or laptops even in the absence of a dish or a fixed line. LTE and Wimax at present are found to be in different development stages, though Wimax has in fact emerged as the first one to hit the market.
The long wait for LTE, however is considered worthy by many ISPs for the fact that it comes with a great advantage of being capable of a rollout from their existing base station real estate, as well as infrastructure. Wimax, meanwhile comes in two forms; fixed Wimax (802.16d) and mobile Wimax (802.16d).
The two forms are considerably different from each other in terms of performances, as in the case of fixed Wimax, a stationary external antenna can capture high bandwidth speeds delivered, rather than a mobile device lying concealed in one’s handbag or pocket. This states that in practice, high speeds of data access could only be possible in the case of fixed Wimax.
This disadvantage also says that even buildings can get in the way of Wimax signals to degrade them. Therefore, it is likely that the mobile Wimax users might be restricted to half the optimal data rate at shorter base station distances. However, it is expected that with the implementation of advanced techniques like beamforming and MIMO, physical obstructions could be evaded to a great extent by exploiting the multipath effects.
Meanwhile LTE, is a high speed mobile technology that can be used as a substitute or run along with Wimax. Here, unlike Wimax that requires a fresh infrastructure, LTE being an upgrade of the existing 3G technology (UMTS) can be delivered using the existing infrastructure of the current 3G mobile broadband providers. Another factor that could be worth mentioning here is the existing HSDPA technology effectuating the data speeds of up to 7.2Mbps that is used by a good section of the customers at present.
It is also expected that very shortly HSDPA augmentations would help in boosting the current 7.2Mbps speed to 14Mbps downlink speeds. These speeds can promote HSDPA to the status of a potential candidate to substitute wired internet access with wireless, which says that HSDPA could be more than enough to satiate many broadband users appetite for decent data access speeds.
