The 4GWE Conference collocated with ITEXPO West 2009, is running Sept. 1 to 3 in Los Angeles. TEXPO West keynotes covered the gamut of communications technology. A keynote session of the 4GWE conference covered the opportunities and challenges of the broadband stimulus program.
Other news from the conference:
- Nortel and LG Electronics demonstrated the world’s first 3GPP standards compliant active handover of a data transmission between a LTE network and a CDMA network. The companies said the demonstration was conducted over 700MHz spectrum using Nortel CDMA Evolved high-rate packet data (eHRPD) 1xEV-DO and Nortel LTE solution with LG’s dual-mode CDMA-LTE M13 terminal.
- The use of “White Spaces,” will enable alternative spectrum, but also create the possibility of product-oriented models such as what has happened with WiFi, suggested an expert panel.
- Smarter Applications for 4G may alter the business model, like Apple’s App Store did for 3G. Smart connected health products and wireless energy monitoring solutions represent multi-billion dollar markets, said panelist Mary Cronin.
- Operators and their providers seemed more willing than ever to work with software developers, observed Paul Kapustka, including talking about plans to open APIs into network knowledge (billing, presence, location) that developers might use to build even more useful 4G applications.
- Ali Tabassi, Clearwire’s president of global ecosystem and standards, said there are currently 470 WiMax deployments today covering 430 million users, a figure expected to double to 800 million by 2010, according to Abassi.
“There are 400 million people using 3G (HSDPA/WCDMA) technologies today,” Ericsson’s CTO Hakan Eriksson told GigaOm last month. “There will be 70 million people using WiMAX in five years.” By then, he expects Long Term Evolution (LTE) will be the standard backed most all large phone companies.
The biggest surge in WiMAX growth, says Jupiter research, will happen after 2010.
Nokia Siemens Networks has stopped development of WiMax radio technology entirely, opting to partner with specialty vendors Airspan and Alvarion for their base station gear, leaving Motorola, Samsung, and Huawei — largely by virtue of their Clearwire contracts — as the big three WiMAX vendors.
