WiMAX vs LTE: Can India afford losing spectrum?

BANGALORE, INDIA: Long Term Evolution (LTE), let alone TD-LTE, was nowhere in the long term plans of India in its journey for 4G. Although there were many speculation on its entry, 4G was always WiMAX for India, until equipment vendor Qualcomm entered into the BWA spectrum fray, for TD-LTE.

The surprise factor didn't go well with many, especially WiMAX Forum, who went to the extent of calling Qualcomm 'The hoarders of spectrum'.

Following Qualcomm's announcement came Ericsson CTO Haken Ericsson's comment, "It is commonly known in the industry that WiMAX requires minimum 30 MHz of spectrum, whereas India is offering only 20 MHz and this may result in severe interference problems."

Also Read: NSN Alcatel and now Cisco: Is WiMAX losing grounds

Terming the comment as an 'unfortunate expression' from the part of the CTO, C S Rao, Honorary Chairman, WIMAX Foum, India Chapter, adds, “LTE will spoil chances and prospects of WiMAX growth in India”.

Now, with regard to the spectrum band insufficiency, P Balaji, VP, Marketing and Strategy, Ericsson India, says: “It is commonly known in the industry that WiMAX requires a three cell frequency reuse. This means that in order to operate a WiMAX system with a 10 MHz carrier, needs three-times 10 MHz to operate in. This in turn means that the minimum spectrum requirement to be able to operate standard WiMAX without severe interference problems is 30 MHz! On the other hand, TD-LTE has a re-use frequency of 1. Therefore, it can be used in adjacent cells without any severe interference.”

If so, it will be a major flaw from India's part, if the government plans to auction two 20 MHz unpaired blocks of spectrum in each of the country's 22 service areas.

“Here it is also worth mentioning that there is a 5 MHz profile mentioned in the WiMAX specifications that could maybe be developed for later deployment in the BWA spectrum to make Wimax fit within the 20 MHz, since then only 15 MHz (3 times 5) would be required. However, this solution can not be recommended, since in that case the Wimax carrier would due to the TDD implementation only have an effective bandwidth of half that of 3G, and only 25 percent of the TD-LTE bandwidth,” says Balaji.

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However, India won't be the first among the147 Countries, where WiMAX has been already deployed, who will be deploying it in the 20Mhz slot.

BSNL, the government-owned telecom service provider, who launched WiMAX during the end of 2009 in 2.3Ghz spectrum, is yet to make a mark in terms of subscribers.

Kanwalinder Singh, president  Qualcomm India and South Asia and senior vice president Qualcomm Inc., says: “WiMAX, a niche technology for fixed broadband, has been in existence here for quite some time, but has no market traction which is reflected in its insignificant subscriber base. In comparison, EV-DO-based mobile broadband subscribers have exceeded one million base within a year of deployment in India.”

However, Sivakumar, Intel,  feels that it's too early to pass a judgment on BSNL's WiMAX, which was launched in December 2009.

“The infrastructure is growing and it'll take sometime to get into form and build a certain amount of footprint,” adds Sivakumar.

On one hand, where WiMAX Forum and Intel are highly optimistic about WiMAX' success in India, in the 20Mhz spectrum and boo on LTE, which according to them will take another two-three years for commercial roll out. On the other, the LTE proponents such as Qualcomm are Ericsson are equally optimistic about LTE's.

“Going forward, TD-LTE deployed in the BWA band will offer Indian consumers a seamless mobile broadband experience due to inter-operability with 3G, whereas WiMAX will offer a much poorer consumer experience and will not be able to address India’s need for mass market affordable mobile broadband,” says Singh.

On a different note, Rao says that the Ericsson, who have been promoting 3G all this while has suddenly changed its focus to LTE, signifying a major lack of faith in the capacity of 3G. Now coming to WiMAX, he says that the spectrum efficiency of WiMAX is three-times that of 3G and equal to TD-LTE. Moving forward, when WiMAX 2 (IEEE 802.16m) comes in, whose standard will be ratified during the second half of 2010, it will better than what LTE could provide then.

However, from a global perspective, 64 LTE network commitments have been made in 31 countries, and 22 LTE networks are expected to be commercially launched by the end of 2010. Moreover, LTE modems already exist in the market and handsets are expected next year. Whereas, on the other hand over 300+ WiMAX enabled products are already available in the market.

It'll take sometime for the market to decide who is mature and who is immature, however, until then as Rao likes to put it, “Can the country afford to lose a 20 MHz slot till the technology is ready,” to which I'd like to add, “No matter whether it is WiMAX or LTE”?