LTE, Wimax or both? This question has been around for a while and there are different opinions. One that I find it most realistic is that both technologies will survive and own a piece of the wireless market. However since LTE is an evolution of UMTS, I believe LTE will be the dominating 4G technology in future.
One of the today's obstacle with Wimax deployment is lack of the best bandwidth. In Europe bandwidth below 2,5 MHz is occupied by analogue TV and GSM. However the analogue broadcast is palned to be switched off in coming future. For example it is already switched off in Sweden. By that, one of the biggest obstacles for Wimax in Europe is removed. Today 3.5 MHz and even 5 MHz are used for Wimax trials in EMEA. In US, Sprint Nextel has decided to deploy Wimax on 2.5 MHz.
One big advantage of LTE compare to Wimax is that for Wimax a whole new network must be built however LTE is an evolution of UMTS and the existing UMTS network.
LTE and Wimax are fourth generation IP networks based on OFDM. Wimax is an open standard based on IEEE standard 802.16. LTE is not a standard but results in new evolved release 8 of the UMTS standard.
When it comes to market availability, LTE is planned for 2012 and Mobile Wimax (208.16m) which offers same speed as LTE should be ratified in 2009. Then probably 208.16m is available in the market more or less at the same time as LTE.
