Nextel will deploy UMTS TD-CDMA technology from IPWireless, in Washington DC, the companies announced today. The field trial will begin during the third quarter in Washington, D.C.; Arlington, Va.; Alexandria, Va.; Reston, Va. and Bethesda, Md.
“Nextel has conducted lab testing of the IPWireless technology, and this trial will allow us to test the performance and economics offered by the TD-CDMA technology in our 2.5 GHz spectrum,” said Barry West, chief technology officer at Nextel.
The trial will allow Nextel to test a range of subscriber services, including broadband access for laptops, desktops or PDAs, backhaul for enterprise campus and a wide array of Wireless Interactive Multimedia Services such as video streaming, online gaming, document collaboration and video conferencing.
During the upcoming field trial, Nextel will evaluate network performance and customer satisfaction under real-world conditions. The trial is scheduled to run for a minimum of six months and will be offered only to select Nextel customers and is not expected to be offered commercially to the general public at this time.
TD-CDMA supporters claim at least five reasons why TD-CDMA may be a better option than WiMAX.
- Bigger Cells, Reduced Expenses
- Fixed Wireless Now, Mobile Later
- VoIP Supprt
- Global Roaming
- Frequency Band Flexibility
UMTS TDD has been commercially deployed by many service providers around the world.
WiMax proponents claim their COFDM system is faster, supporting more subscribers, can use the unlicensed 2.4 and 5.8 GHz band, can also support voice and global roaming (with 802.16e), and has at least as good frequency flexibility in a variety of bands and bandwidths.
WiMax proponents say their OFDM-based system is more cost/effective, handles multipath better and is more spectrally efficient. There is no upper limit to the data speed you can achieve with OFDM. OFDM will always provide twice the capacity of CDMA, claims Hatim Zaghoul, CEO of Wi-LAN, which holds many OFDM patents.
Mobile Broadband Wireless
(Table courtesy of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore)
| Company | |||||
| System | iBurst | RadioRouter | IPWireless | Ripwave | WIMAX/Wibro |
Related DailyWireless articles include; CDMA vs OFDM, UMTS TDD: The Other Broadband Standard, Siemens and Huawei developing TD-SCDMA, and Unwired in Maui.
