Wimax and TD-LTE technology battle “the new GSM versus CDMA”

Vijay Kr. Singh:BITM, Pune. (Dt-22.04.2010) The two advanced wireless technologies are waiting outside the door. Indian Telecom industry is currently busy with 3G & BWA auctioning. But then what ahead in the wireless field? Do the so awaited 3G technology, is enough for the desire. Do it boost up the broadband , rural penetration and provide real ubiquitous model. The answer is in the upcoming advanced wireless technologies-

Wi-max. TD-LTE.

India will auction two slots of 20Mhz spectrum in the BWA (broadband wireless access) frequency bands two days after it completes its auction for 3G radio waves mainly for fast internet access on mobile phones. While the 3G spectrum allows mobile phone users access to both voice & data services, BWA is primarily for broadband. TD-LTE(time division –long term evolution) is a fourth generation mobile technology that allows a peak download speed of 100Mbps on mobile phones, compared with 20Mbps for 3G and 50Mbps for Wimax. However Wimax(worldwide interoperability for microwave access) is also a fourth generation telecom technology primarily for fast broadband. But what make the TD-LTE ahead over the Wimax , in addition to speed, is that it is a part of popular GSM technology and allow the backward compatibility with both 2G and 3G networks. Wimax subscribers will not be able to use mobile broadband services if they leave the coverage area. But with TD-LTE it can be possible to have backward compatibility.

Apart from the above issue, a very important point regarding the spectrum utilization also suggested the TD-LTE usage for future. TD-LTE use spectrum more efficiently as it can use the entire 20MHz to be auctioned for data transfer. Wimax requires the spectrum to be broken up into channels and you cannot reuse spectrum like you can in GSM Technologies. According to Wimax Forum. The only factor against TD-LTE is that it is a new technology. At present the technology is new and has not been mass produced. It has gone through the maturity curve and definitely be more expensive. Presently the TD-LTE devices are five-seven times more expensive than the Wimax dongles. So as the TD-LTE sound expensive yet, what will happen is that those operators win BWA spectrum will start rolling out wimax and then when time comes they will migrate to LTE.