Wireless Standards - 4Ging Ahead

This week’s BusinessWeek had an interesting report on the debate over 4G mobile standards.  In my opinion, each of the candidates (WiMAX, LTE and UMB) has its own pros and cons, but which is “the best” depends on the factor you consider most important: 

• Being nearly ready for deployment (Mobile WiMAX is already being pushed by Intel, Cisco and Samsung, and deployed at many operators)
• Being the best fit into current GSM standards (LTE was created from the standards bodies that brought you technology being used by 80% of the world), or
• Being the cheapest and most simple (CDMA was adopted by many carriers because it was cheaper than GSM. Now its data version, UMB comes from the same “tree” - and simple and cheap usually wins in vibrant, growing markets)

But, in the midst of these tech wars that all of us, including me, love so much,  it’s easy to lose sight of the larger picture – that the mobile industry is following the landline lead and moving away from competing on voice to competing on data, and the real war is going to be not just for data services to phones, but also to PDAs, laptops, etc.  

Whoever the technical and business winners and losers turn out to be, the trend is very clear – video services will drive data services, which will drive large investments in bandwidth in both wireline and wireless infrastructures.