WiMAX Running out of Wagons to Circle Against LTE

Implications: 1.      It seems with each month that passes by that WiMAX loses more of its steam. 2.      The rhetoric coming out of even the technology-centric component vendors is starting to demonstrate a sense of resignation that WiMAX will have difficulty remaining an independent standard. 3.      It is hard to imagine much incentive for the LTE movement to have WiMAX “end up as a subset.”

Analysis:  An article title in Telephony may turn out to represent a foreshadowing of the future of WiMAX: “Intel releases laptop WiMAX platform (without the WiMAX).”  The situation is really bad when there are doubts at the basic component level.  And it seems that two proponents of WiMAX -- Intel and Altair Semiconductor – are using the same talking points.  In the source article, the executive at Altair states: "I think that's WiMax's best chance [is] to harmonize with LTE.”  A recent article in The Economist points out: “Even Sean Maloney, Intel’s Mr WiMAX, says ‘[the two technologies]’ ought to be harmoni[z]ed."   

A VP of AMD, which has no dog in this fight, is also not optimistic. According to a quote in PC Magazine: “If OEMs want to go with WiMAX, we can put it on a PCI add-on card, and it's in there....But with Sprint as the sole domestic WiMAX provider, U.S. WiMAX support ‘can be counted on one finger...’ "With 4G, you need all your fingers and toes."  

Speaking of the OEMs, a senior VP at wireless powerhouse, Ericsson, summarizes the  critical issue with WiMAX components in Business News Americas.  “In the mobile domain we have learned time after time that it's the volume that dominates. When you're in the chipset business, as we are with mobile platforms, it's the millions that count...that's how you get the cost down and that's where you get the momentum....It's too late [for WiMAX]. We're not religious about this. It's just the fact.”  

With statements made by even pro-WiMAX component vendors amounting to the raising of the white flag, it is hard to see why the LTE folks would bend over backwards to save that 4G technology from extinction.