Clearwire to trial WiMAX 2 in 2011, deploy in 2012?

By on Jan 20, 2010 at 8:26 AM
Rumor January 20, 2010

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IEEE is expected to approve the 802.16m mobile WiMAX standard, also known as WiMAX 2, this summer. Under laboratory conditions, WiMAX 2 can deliver a blazing 120Mbit/s down and 60Mbit/s up when using 4×2 MIMO antennas on a 20MHz-wide channel. In practical terms, WiMAX 2 will approximately double the speed of the current WiMAX technology. In an interview with Unstrung, Clearwire’s CTO John Saw said that Clearwire is going to review the new 802.16m standard but will not immediately adopt it. The wireless broadband company could begin testing WiMAX 2 sometime in 2011, with commercial deployment possible in 2012. Depending on the 4G market in 2010, though, customers may never see 802.16m hit their WiMAX connection as Clearwire has been very open about its ability to drop WiMAX and switch to LTE if the market favors LTE. Does it really matter whether Clearwire switches to WiMAX 2 or LTE as long as the connection is stable, the speeds are fast and the devices are numerous?

[Via DSL Reports]

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  • T

    With LTE, I know some of the requirements state that a stationery object should almost multiply speeds 10x. Does WiMax serve the same benefit? Perhaps the best course of action would be to go after the home market… worldwide LTE is certainly becoming the mobile standard as a pre-4G technology…

  • Champs

    This is just me, but I’d rather see US carriers compete on features and price like the EU, without artificial barriers of mutually-incompatible networks. You can’t even get 3G with the same handset on our two largest GSM carriers. Wired consumer voice and data devices are universal, and it’s time for wireless to catch up.

    • T

      Well, as is currently. Once that Qualcomm chip that does all GSM bands efficiently starts getting used in handsets that will of course change. The question then would be if they’d be able to also include legacy CDMA bands to truly knock down the barriers and open up competition. It’ll also be interesting to see if other manufacturers start following Google’s example with the unsubsidized/unlocked phones.

    • COCOViper

      The problem you’re describing is not a network technology issue but an RF band issue. Even if all 4 major US networks were GSM you’d still have incompatible devices as it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to include all the antennas and radio bands. And given that each carrier has there own licensed spectrum there’s only two solutions to this and both require future technology:

      1- Software defined radio (which many in the RF world will say is an impossibility for at least 10 years if not longer).

      2- Whitespace spectrum (which would require all new networks from an antenna and base station perspective to say nothing of the FCC finally giving it the OK).

  • Sin City

    Depending on the 4G market in 2010, though, customers may never see 802.16m hit their WiMAX connection as Clearwire has been very open about its ability to drop WiMAX and switch to LTE if the market favors LTE.

    I think that’s truly the reason they won’t upgrade to the even better WiMax(m). Dual radios for voice and WiMax, VOIP, and Video Chatting on a mobile WiMax device, makes me excited either way.

  • mi_canuck

    wow… 2012… let me hold my breath…

  • Channan

    Why are real world speeds nowhere near theoretical speeds? WiMax 2 supposedly offers 120Mbps down, which is twice as much as the current WiMax. You’d think the currect WiMax would offer 60Mbps down, and yet, it’s only around 4-6Mbps.

    How did that happen?

    • COCOViper

      It’s the same way with all radio technologies, the problem is Wimax and LTE are very close to shannon’s limit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy-channel_coding_theorem) thus even minor imperfections in the signal will produce drastic drops in performance for all radio technologies at this bandwidth.

      The only way to mitigate the problems is lots of antennas and lots of diversity (distance) between them. This is a problem in a small handset that can’t really be solved with conventional physics.

      • ~phel

        wait lots of distance between antennaes is a good thing? I’m not trying to be a smartass, I just don’t get that…

      • COCOViper

        Yea in MIMO systems (systems with multiple antennas on both the receiver and transmitter), diversity between antennas allows the Radio chipset to compare the signals and determine what is actually the signal vs. noise due to reflections, delays, general interference, etc.

        This is why newer 802.11n routers are so much larger than some of the 802.11b/g routers- so they can provide distance between their multiple antennas.

      • ~phel

        so in laymens terms it’s like a funnel? more space means ease of flow?

      • COCOViper

        No think of it as a bunch of friends trying to determine where a light is coming from at night.

        If you’re all standing next to each other the difference in your perspective is minimal and having 2 friends or 200 doesn’t really add much value. But if your and your friends spread out with say, 300 ft between you, maybe some on top of a building, others on the ground, you have additional perspectives to combine which then adds up to a better assessment of where the light is coming from.

        The same thing is true for MIMO radio systems- more antennas is good, but spacing between the antennas is even better as it allows the chips inside to look at what each antenna is hearing and then compare them to come up with what is just signal vs. what is noise.

        Another example would be differential signaling- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_signaling If you had a wire that was sending a +5V signal and it’s opposite (say -5V) down to wires and you had some noise in the system of some unknown voltage, you could compare your two signals and understand what is signal and what is noise.

    • http://thegadgetgurus.net Vic

      You’re not comparing it right. If I was the only one on the channel, then I should be pulling speeds in the upper 30-40Mbps; however, that is RARELY the case. The 60Mbps is per channel, and there are multiple users sharing the bandwidth on that channel.

  • Fernando

    It’s because that speed is for one device, but once multiple devices are connected that speed gets split, plus you also factor in distance from the tower and the actual speed of the connection at the tower and that’s why you only get around 4-5mb.

    • COCOViper

      That’s not true. If you’re the only device on a tower with a perfect signal you won’t be able to get much more than 15Mbps real world. If you move away from the tower and get reflections and such it will drop down to 6Mbps or so pretty fast. It’s an RF limit and part of the reason there will likely never be a true 5G as we think of it.

  • iFloss

    Well first off LTE is offering about the same speeds last time I checked. I would love all carriers to use the same standards but Competition is encouraged with different technologies. There’s advantages and disadvantages to both CDMA & GSM. Let’s see how this turns out.

    I kinda feel sprint going to GSM when they go for 5G in probably another 5 years. Unless the CDMA versionn is amazing fast. By then we should be seeing 300MBPS+

    I wonder what comes next.

    • T

      5G? We won’t even be at 4G yet in 5 years… hence the “Long-Term Evolution” leading up to 4G… because LTE, it isn’t 4G. Neither is WiMax.

      • Sin City

        LTE Advanced and WiMax(m) are true 4G. You’re right if you were referring to WiMax(e) and LTE Standard as not being 4G.

    • COCOViper

      There likely won’t be a 5G in the same way there have been 3G and 4G that pulled more bandwidth out of a given amount of spectrum as we’re approaching the limitations of the channel. The only real solution is more spectrum or a vastly different concept of wireless communication than we have ever done.

    • iowa

      You don’t understand gsm vs cdma. Gsm is simply a codec, that runs on tdma broadcast tech. Cdma is a broadcast tech. Iden is another codec that runs on tdma. Lte is not a gsm technology. Lte and wimax are both varients of cdma. So no, sprint and verizon will not go gsm, as that would be backwards. Traditional cdma and gsm will be phased out as 4g grows.

  • Ralph

    iFloss and T are quite correct, imo. It makes no sense for Clearwire to turn from 3.5G WiMAX to 3.5G LTE in 2012, when in the same year, a true 4G technology is available in the form of WiMAX rel2 (802.16m). The LTE 4G version is called LTE-Advanced and wiil make it to market in 2014.

  • Oliver

    10Mbps for Wimax v1 would be fine, as long as latency is low (sub 10 ms) for VOIP applications. There is too much focus on max bandwidth and no mention of other critical metrics for a good internet experience. One can stream Youtube videos in HD over a WIFI connection of a max 10Mbps, no problem. One can use Skype for calling with much less bandwidth — as long as latency is low and the connection is reliable / persistent. Otherwise, the call is shuttered, cut off, and dropped. Yet the main focus is on upload/download max theoretical speeds.

    People say the great thing about 4G is the apps are already there. It is true. But how many apps would benefit from 60Mbps? HD movie downloads… if the internet backbone itself and the servers could sustain that throughput in the first place. For the foreseeable future most apps won’t require that much speed. Those apps however, will definitely require other metrics to perform: latency, persistence, reliability, coverage, and so on. 4G marketing must convey these factors, especially as it’s the tech savvy users that will adopt it first and ask those questions. Marketing that says “it’s blazing fast”, or “up to XXMbps in lab experiments” is fun to read, but not helpful when considering adopting the technology..

  • http://www.mediag3.com Jim

    Anyone ever heard of MediaG3?

  • Taronba4

    What a bunch of CRAP! Why would Sprint and Clearwire drop Wimax after all the investments, momentary and intellectual, to favor LTE, which isn’t even created as a viable service option, over Wimax which is running NOW in 70 markets in the USA and 140 countries around the world? You need more
    click thru’s, eh!

    • Alfred Weeks

      I couldn’t agree more Taronba4.  I can not figure out why Clearwire/Sprint would want to spend all that money to switch to LTE (or worse, offer both LTE and WiMax) when WiMax 2 (m) can do the same thing and be backwards compatible with existing WiMax devices.  Both can do over 100 Mbps mobile and 1000 Mbps fixed (over 20 Mhz).  Why go with LTE at all?  Existing LTE devices from other carriers won’t work on Clear’s network (E.G. Verizon’s LTE uses 700 Mhz and Clearwire is on 2500-2600 Mhz, My HTC Thunderbolt won’t work on Clear).  Clear even plans to use TDD and Verizon’s uses FDD, I don’t know if my phone can use TDD LTE.  In fact, Clearwire has so much spectrum, they already could up our speed by adding more 10 Mhz channels to existing towers.  If Verizon can do it using just 20 Mhz, what is Clear doing with the rest of their 100+ Mhz.  Just does not make sense to me?

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