Dear Executives

In this issue of Telefocal's enewsletter, we are pleased to attach an article on "Mobile Broadband for Greenfield operators: LTE or Mobile WIMAX?" for your reading pleasure.

Feel free to contact me should you be interested to contribute any White Paper or interesting article for our Telefocal community, participate in any of our public training programmes on my right, or if you have any special request for customised trainings for your team.

Thank you!

Rifat Hossain (Mr)
Senior Training Executive
Telefocal Asia Pte Ltd
M +65 8157 3870 / D +65 6848 7856
T +65 6848 7860 / F +65 6846 7920

Mobile Broadband for Greenfield operators: LTE or Mobile WIMAX?

Data on the move is a common sight. Mobile Broadband (MBB) provides the convenience to be connected anytime, anywhere, to 3G services. It is becoming the mainstream offering in the developed markets and has reshaped the wireless industry. It is estimated that by 2014, there will be more Mobile Broadband connections than those of Fixed Broadband, thus establishing it as one of the killer applications in the wireless era.

Currently, global MBB penetrations is very low - less than 4% (source: ITU) and lower in the developing markets - below 2 % (per thousand households). Greenfield operators can make use of this recipe to tap into the market of personalized data services. Due to the diverse choice of competing technologies available, operators are faced with a dilemma.

Amidst available technologies such as HSPA, LTE, Mobile WiMax, Evolved EDGE, iBurst, TD-CDMA, operators should consider the following factors when settling on the choice of technology:

Two technologies stood out from the crowd and satisfied best the above criteria - Mobile WiMax and LTE.:

These two radio technologies came from two different backgrounds. Mobile WiMax has been around for the past few years and we had seen hundreds of global deployments already, while LTE has just set its global presence with a few commercial deployments. It is also a common fact that both technologies are very similar with more than 70% of the core technology being the same. So which of the two is suitable for new entrants? The business case for a new entrant is challenging no matter which technology is chosen. Choosing the right technology path depends on each operator's individual situation which is governed by:

• Regional Constraints
• Political and regulatory regime
• Social Trends
• Local ecosystem

For a typical operator, technology choice can be defined by existing assets, voice strategy and current network, if any:

A more detailed analysis on the decision is given in the "WiMax vs LTE" training course. Though political, economic and ecosystem factors may affect the above decision, technological factors are also important. Detailed technical comparison of the features as well as comparison from a Planning / Deployment point of view of the above two technologies are covered in the following courses:

• LTE Radio Planning
• Mobile WIMAX Radio Planning

We will be discussing other issues in the areas of LTE and Mobile WiMax in upcoming articles.

To check more information about "Mobile Broadband for Greenfield operators: LTE or Mobile WIMAX?", click here.

For our E-Newsletter Click here