We thought Qualcomm might be finally embracing WiMAX, given its recent purchase of TeleCIS’ mobile WiMAX assets. Not so much. Len Lauer, Qualcomm’s Executive Vice President and Group president, gave WiMAX the smackdown at the Wireless Innovations conference on Wednesday.
Lauer said WiMAX is more expensive to deploy than cellular networks, while cellular can provide the equivalent bandwidth. He also pointed to poor early reviews of South Korea’s network as an example of why the technology isn’t all that “revolutionary.” Harsh, though not unexpected since Qualcomm’s whole reason for existence is CDMA and WCDMA.
Ironically, Lauer was the CTOO at Sprint around the time the company made its decision to deploy a WiMAX network. Was it a bone of contention for him then? Who knows. Here are some of the good bits from his anti-WiMAX speech:
On WiMAX vs cellular speeds:
There’s a lot of talk about WiMAX, as a great revolution in the wireless industry. The fact is, it is not a revolution as far as architecture. Whether it’s CDMA or WCDMA technology, there is a tremendous amount of bandwidth that is being delivered in these architectures. When I say bandwidth, on the down link it can run 2 to 4 to 6 to 8 mbps per second and that is similar to what we are getting with cable modems throughout the world. It’s an assertion that WiMAX can only deliver these speeds, and you can’t do that with WCDMA and CDMA. In fact you can.
On WiMAX cost:
The second assertion on WiMAX is that it is very low cost. Well our view, and we think we know architecture pretty well, is that WiMAX is actually a higher cost to deploy than a WCDMA or CDMA2000 network. We see it as having cost disadvantages.
On WiMAX bad reviews:
In terms of performance characteristics, were are willing to compete with WiMAX any day of the week. . . If you look at it now in South Korea there a number of press articles written that the results are very disappointing, they only have a few thousand users. But if you look at CDMA or WCDMA where there are hundreds of thousands to millions of users.
So why the heck Intel’s chosen WiMax over CDMA?
I am more skeptical than most about WiMAX but the comments from Qualcomm are heavy on the bun and light on the beef.
Resistance to WiMAX is futile.
PS. “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” Just posted the comment above and noticed that comments on GigaOM are moderated? ouch… that is so 18th century.
not moderated for content, just through the spam filter
Ninja,
you gotta use a pseudonym or email address (even a fake one) that doesn’t look like spam. Spam filters are here to stay and that is unfortunately the reality of blogging comment systems of today.
Katie,
The TeleCIS deal was more about Qualcomm’s relentless pursuit of OFDM IP than about backing WiMax. It helps buttress UMB (like Flarion’s IP and Airgo’s IP does), and ensures a nice potential royalty stream a la W-CDMA just in case WiMax gets real traction.
I agree the irony of seeing Lauer bashing WiMax is thick given his last job position.
The other irony is how Qualcomm and the CDMA Association is now effectively backing an OFDM-based standard in UMB (despite the pro-CDMA rhetoric), while the GSMA is backing HSPA as a CDMA-based one. Wonders never cease…
More on this at http://venturebeat.com/2007/04/26/is-wimax-like-the-tragic-barbaro/
Hi,
And what happened to 802.20 and how it is different from WiMAX?
Please educate me.
Thanks!
Minor clarification. Lauer was COO of Sprint Nextel, not CTO. He’s a business guy who understands technology, not the other way around.
Anand-
802.20 and 802.16 (WiMax) are both based on OFDM, but 802.20 was created from the start for mobility, whereas WiMax started out life as a fixed access technology. When 802.20 stalled out (Flarion and others were promoting it, but Qualcomm stymied it), people started pushing mobile WiMax instead (802.16e and now m). 802.20 is in semi-permanent hiatus at this point, and QCOM is now focusing its OFDM efforts in the 3GPP2 standards body with UMB rather than in the IEEE.