Volume matters in any consumer electronics business, which would explain the new interest in a version of Long Term Evolution by some WiMAX supporters. Simply, a new LTE standard using time division rather than frequency division would allow WiMAX networks to use consumer equipment designed to support the global LTE market, which is going to produce huge volumes of gear, since almost all mobile providers support LTE as the fourth-generation air interface standard.
The time division duplex version of LTE is known as TD-LTE, and there is a push on to ratify TD-LTE as an official LTE standard working in the 2.6 GHz frequency range, which currently is set aside in some markets for WiMAX.
TD-LTE would therefore leverage the expected wide availability of FDD LTE devices on networks originally envisioned as using the WiMAX air interface.
The new standard would allow WiMAX providers to avoid the “low volume” constraint that will limit the amount of effort and attention developers and device manufacturers will spend creating WiMAX customer premises equipment.
There would not appear to be major impediments to getting such a standard approved, and such a move would allow Clearwire and Sprint, for example, to participate in the volume manufacturing scale LTE devices are expected to achieve.
That, in turn, will make Clearwire and Sprint’s 4G network a lot more attractive to end users, who will have access to a broader selection of handsets at lower prices.
Volume matters in any consumer electronics business, which would explain the new interest in a version of Long Term Evolution by some WiMAX supporters. Simply, a new LTE standard using time division rather than frequency division would allow WiMAX networks to use consumer equipment designed to support the global LTE market, which is going to produce huge volumes of gear, since almost all mobile providers support LTE as the fourth-generation air interface standard.
The time division duplex version of LTE is known as TD-LTE, and there is a push on to ratify TD-LTE as an official LTE standard working in the 2.6 GHz frequency range, which currently is set aside in some markets for WiMAX.
TD-LTE would therefore leverage the expected wide availability of FDD LTE devices on networks originally envisioned as using the WiMAX air interface.
The new standard would allow WiMAX providers to avoid the “low volume” constraint that will limit the amount of effort and attention developers and device manufacturers will spend creating WiMAX customer premises equipment.
There would not appear to be major impediments to getting such a standard approved, and such a move would allow Clearwire and Sprint, for example, to participate in the volume manufacturing scale LTE devices are expected to achieve.
That, in turn, will make Clearwire and Sprint’s 4G network a lot more attractive to end users, who will have access to a broader selection of handsets at lower prices.
