subject: India May Make the Switch From WiMAX to LTE [print this page] Bahrat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), a state-owned telecommunications company in India, is reported to have established a basis to potentially transition fromWiMAX to LTE technology, should WiMAX become unpopular in the upcoming months. This release, coming mere days within the release of an ABI Research report forecasting a petty 59 million users worldwide utilizing WIMAX technology by 2015, suggests that LTE may emerge as the leading standard of 4G technology.
India may turn out to be a central player in the switch from the varying standards. It had previously been understood that WiMAX and LTE had different roles in the emergence of4Gspeeds worldwide; their technologies had individual functions that enabled each to be used within their own capabilities, with WiMAX in the TDD spectrum and LTE in FDD. This changed, however, when Qualcomm pushedTD-LTE, an LTE standard technology compatible with the TDD spectrum.
TDD, being better suited for asymmetrical traffic, has always been the favored duplex method forinternet access. With both leading 4G technologies pushing the same championed means of access, the choice of one over the other won't be based on preferred duplex methods. There is no clear cut answer as to which is better if they are both doing the same thing the same way.
BSNL not only realizes this but has also provided for themselves a backdoor to their chosen4G technology, WiMAX, should LTE prove to be more popular. The telecom company has apparently added a clause in its contracts with its broadband deployment partners, Teracom, Take Solutions, Adishwar India, and Ampoules that makes them legally obligated to converting to LTE technology if LTE proves to be the more popular standard. Given the ABI Research report, it seems that BSNL may have made a good decision; the non-decision is always the safest.
