* Bandwidth is bandwidth
It became clear at the 4G World show in Chicago that the wireless industry is striving to de-emphasize which network technology delivers the capacity users need to run their multimedia applications and focus more on simply seeing to it that users do, indeed, get that capacity.
There were several instances where combining Wi-Fi with 4G (or 3G), either for data offload or coverage purposes, was advocated. And there was also talk of multiradio, multifrequency phones that someday might support both WiMAX and Long Term Evolution (LTE), the two 4G favorites, as well as unified customer databases to aid in user network-to-network roaming.
Bill Morrow, CEO of Clearwire, for example, demonstrated via video clip the comparative performance of two side-by-side Apple iPhones mounted on the windshield of a moving car. Each downloaded information from Google Earth: one iPhone did so using the AT&T 3G network; the other used the device’s Wi-Fi connection to the Clearwire 4G WiMAX network. The Wi-Fi/4G combo showed far less delay and choppiness.
Google Earth now takes you to the moon
“We’re living in a world where 1 or 2 gigabytes per month” of usage per person is supposed to be sufficient, Morrow said. “But we really need tens of gigabytes per month,” given the traffic generated by the latest applications for smartphones.
This is an interesting observation, given that many of today’s mobile data plans are described as “unlimited” for a domestic flat fee of about $60. But the operators actually reserve the right to cut you off or charge you hefty per-kilobyte fees once you’ve downloaded 5GB in a given month (about the volume required to watch a feature film).
Bruce Brda, senior vice president and general manager, wireless, at Motorola, advocated “stopping the debate” between LTE and WiMAX altogether (Motorola builds infrastructure products for both).
“Motorola believes that the two network types will coexist,” and that user roaming between them will be handled by devices with “multiple bands and multiple radios,” he said.
There was also talk of collapsing 802.11n Wi-Fi interfaces into forthcoming 4G femtocells and possibly throwing set-top box functions into the devices, too, in the case of home networks. Femtocells are low-cost mini-cell sites that would enable carriers to build smaller and smaller cells as they need to reuse spectrum to add capacity and improve performance.
