What happens to 4G service...LTE?

[mig1980]

Good morning everyone. With all the talks about Clearwire going to LTE I am worried aboutt he future of 4G service on the EVO. I have not purchased one yet but will hopefully do so soon.

My question to everyone is, if in fact Clearwire goes with LTE for 4G, will the EVO no longer have the 4G capability or what would be the outcome? Even if Clearwire does what they say they will and run both WiMAX and LTE simultaneously for a while, wouldn't that mean that the emphasis would be on LTE and WiMAX would be second in improvements, support, etc?

Looking for input from people that may know more than I do.

 

[eieio]

Nothing.

They will run both LTE and Wimax at the same time. They serve two different markets/needs, they will support both equally.

 

[BenChase7]

From what I have read, Clear/Sprint will run WiMax and LTE in parallel with one another. It sounds like they will be testing this system in Phoenix this fall and winter. You dont have anything to worry about right now. Thats whats great about this system.. they have the easy option to run both systems at the same time... in parallel with each other.

 

[J03]

It will be quite awhile till they eventually drop wimax and stick with LTE. By then, its time to upgrade to a new phone anyway.

 

[ep3n3wp]

I thought I remembered reading some thing saying that clear wire wimax could be changed over from 4g wimax to lte with a software update at the antenna on clearwires end...
My only concern and worry is that the evo won't pick up the lte cause their radio is only for wimax...

I can see future headaches with this switch and which one sprint supports more

 

[jbsg02]

It will be quite awhile till they eventually drop wimax and stick with LTE. By then, its time to upgrade to a new phone anyway.

That's what I'm thinking

 

[mig1980]

This is exactly what I was worried about. Almost like the battle between HD video and Blu Ray. You can't find HD video discs anywhere anymore. Given that there will only be two or three phones that will support WiMax 4G, I can see Sprint moving away from it completely sooner than later.

Especially if they can provide the speeds of 20 - 70 Mbps that they are claiming. That would be huge.

I thought I remembered reading some thing saying that clear wire wimax could be changed over from 4g wimax to lte with a software update at the antenna on clearwires end...
My only concern and worry is that the evo won't pick up the lte cause their radio is only for wimax...

I can see future headaches with this switch and which one sprint supports more

 

[eieio]

This is exactly what I was worried about. Almost like the battle between HD video and Blu Ray. You can't find HD video discs anywhere anymore. Given that there will only be two or three phones that will support WiMax 4G, I can see Sprint moving away from it completely sooner than later.

Especially if they can provide the speeds of 20 - 70 Mbps that they are claiming. That would be huge.

Wimax will be a widely used Cell tech through out the world.

They already signed roaming and resale agreements sold. It will be used for other things besides Cell phones there is too much money and investment made to abandon it any time soon..

its a 4-5 billion dollar investment..

 

[Howie]

It's smart for them to move to LTE, since the other three will be doing it. At first they can share the expense of building out, and it will actually allow roaming. Wimax doesn't have any roaming partners in the US so you'd be dropped to 3G if you had to roam.

 

[eieio]

It's smart for them to move to LTE, since the other three will be doing it. At first they can share the expense of building out, and it will actually allow roaming. Wimax doesn't have any roaming partners in the US so you'd be dropped to 3G if you had to roam.

That is about to change.

LTE does not server their entire marketing goals, they are a reseller, Wimax will be resold for cable, phone, internet and wifi..

You can not do that with LTE.. Wimax is cheaper in cost and more efficient, the returns are greater.

I have them being profitable by next year Christmas, which is unheard of for this kind of roll out.

 

[HoldenCaufield]

LTE is backward compatible with the 4g transmitters that Sprint/Clear have already invested in. Switching to LTE will be easy for them. LTE has the advantage of being a lower bandwidth than 4g, so it will more easily penetrate buildings, and it has higher theoretical speeds.
This is really good news.
The bad news is that you will need a new device to pick up the LTE data signal. But by the time those devices are available, the EVO will be more or less obsolete anyway.

BTW, I had Clear's 4g broadband in Honolulu, and I was not really impressed. It was really hard to get a consistent signal in my apartment. I think LTE is the way to go from my limited research on the subject.

 

[Rigmaster]

Wimax and LTE will coexist. LTE will grow to be more dominant, but that will take several more years as it's still a technology that isn't even based on finalized standards. The carriers will likely have to work with each other to build out LTE as it's very expensive to roll out.

I think Sprint's already revealed it's strategy in that Wimax will be more prevalent in less populated areas (it's cheaper to roll out) and LTE in densely populated areas. Since it will take years to roll out LTE fully though, Wimax will be Sprint's transitional technology. Wimax will also stay around for a long time as I don't expect 3G to go anywhere for at least another decade because of all the existing communications built around it. Traditional phonelines aren't as common in households today, but the wires are still being used by (drumroll), phone companies, cable, and other ISP providers.

Think of Sprint's play as the opposite of ATT, who won't have LTE until it's more mature but will have lost the edge in delivering what high-speed mobile customers want.

 

[archercc]

The higher frequency of WiMax means it actually has a higher threshold of theoretical bandwidth. What that shakes out to in practice is another matter.

WiMax is also a standard and its open, so others could adopt it. LTE requires some licensing so not everyone would be in such a rush to run to it. Its primary advantage is the lower frequency isnt as susceptible to attenuation when going indoors.

 

[kencrudup]

it will be quite awhile till they eventually drop wimax and stick with lte. By then, its time to upgrade to a new phone anyway.

whs.

 

[BenChase7]

This link is from Clear... it appears to be a pretty thorough explination of what Clear/Sprint plans to do with 4G. It sounds pretty good to me. Testing will begin this Fall in Phoenix. I live in PHX... so this made my day!! It appears to be a co-existance of WiMax and LTE. The plans sound impressive!

Clearwire Corp - News Room - News Release=

 

[BenChase7]

Test Scenarios
Clearwire expects to conduct tests across three key areas:

• FDD LTE: Clearwire intends to conduct FDD LTE (Frequency Division Duplex) tests using 40 MHz of spectrum, paired in 20 MHz contiguous channels, of its 2.5 GHz spectrum. Clearwire expects to confirm the capability to produce real-world download speeds that range from 20-70 Mbps. This is expected to be significantly faster than the 5-12 Mbps speeds currently envisioned by other LTE deployments in the U.S., which will rely on smaller pairs of 10 Mhz channels or less.
• TDD LTE: Clearwire will concurrently test TDD LTE (Time Division Duplex), in a 20 MHz configuration, which is twice the channel size currently used in its 4G WiMAX deployments.
• WiMAX and LTE: Clearwire will also test WiMAX co-existence with both FDD LTE and TDD LTE to confirm the flexibility of its network and spectrum strength to simultaneously support a wide-range of devices across its all-IP network.

 

[novox77]

From what I've read, Sprint plans to keep both Wimax and LTE. They will have different applications.

There will not be any data cap on wimax due to the higher bandwidth potential. They will cap LTE.

LTE operates at 700mhz. Wimax is 2.4ghz. Lower frequencies penetrate buildings better, so it makes sense to offer LTE in densely populated areas. At the same time, with more people using it, they may run into bandwidth issues.

It's trivial to program the radio to listen for a different band as well as update the protocol. I'm pretty sure the Evo can handle LTE through a firmware update.

 

[Rigmaster]

Sprint will have no choice but to charge similarly for LTE as other carriers - not cool!

 

[eieio]

Sprint will have no choice but to charge similarly for LTE as other carriers - not cool!

Far from it.. They have several advantages that the other providers don't have..

Not only can they provide it cheaper they can provide faster speeds, as well over a larger population..

 

[Rigmaster]

Far from it.. They have several advantages that the other providers don't have..

Not only can they provide it cheaper they can provide faster speeds, as well over a larger population..

For LTE-specific devices, Sprint will not separate itself from the other carriers. LTE is going to require cooperation and roaming agreements, and it's hard to imagine for the LTE service Sprint charging significantly less. For Wimax, yes, Sprint can remain on it's own.

The other consideration will be that LTE may still depend on Wimax to extend 4G coverage where the LTE limits are reached but it's impractical to build out further using LTE tech. Both will be data-focused though so I don't see it affecting call performance so much. At least not for some time.