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Official 4G/WiMax: what is it, why do we want it

I'm going to quote RiverOfIce, because she said a lot of things better that most others and in a way I can understand it. I've combined a few of her post, so they could be out of context, but well worth reading in my opinion.
Wimax and LTE are not competing against each other. There is no winner/loser. They are not made to destroy each other. Wimax is going nowhere. Ultimately wimax will have more coverage. Why? Because cities will use wimax for everything from parking meters to free wimax. Cable companies will use it as last mile of service. Walmart will use it for connections from store to store. Every corporation will use it to replace wifi and a wimax phone will be able to use all those towers for free. That is the wonderful thing about wimax. The standard says any app, any device, and any founding carrier. LTE is only a cellphone standard, only going to be used by cellphones. Comparing them is like comparing current 3g cdma to wifi. Completely different uses. Wimax is made to bring everything you own a broadband connection. Your home, your car, your phone, your netbook, your work, your tv, everything. LTE is only for you mobile phone. LTE does not have the bandwidth to do any more. Wimax has enough bandwidth, to bring every home, pc, cellphone, a 100mbs connection and still have more bandwidth left over for all of lte uses. That is the problem. LTE has very little bandwidth. Not much more then what is being used today, but the current cellphones.

That is why sprint went with wimax. Every major company, city, county, state, and country store will have a wimax connection. Comcast has not even started it's roll out of wimax and either has Time/Warner. LTE and wimax are both good techs, but Wimax will be more available around the world. LTE is going to be very limited in bandwidth. Let me make this clear.

Wimax will be installed and used more in the united states and around the world, by far. But LTE will be used by more cell phones. It is even possible for sprint to use lte, if they choose to. But it is not some stupid betamax/vhs thing. There is no winner/loser. There is only wifi/bluetooth/cdma/evo/gsm/htspa thing.

Intel, google, and samsung alone has more billions of dollars then all the cellphone companies multi millions put together together. Not multi millions, multi billons. LTE and WIMAX are not fighting each other, and no one will win. This is true, but wimax has a lot of spectrum. The FCC is going to open up 2.5, 2.3, and 3.1 ghz (maybe the 5ghz) for wimax. Which means faster is faster.

LTE has at most 7 channels at 1.4mhz and only 1 at 10mhz, per tower. Right now, wimax has 256 channels (only 200 will me used max) at 20mhz. (for those that do not know the bigger the mhz, the faster the channel). Each channel can do about 130 devices. So at 7 channels, an area that has more then 900 devices (max), you are going to see slowdown (this is just theoretical, no lte tower has every been tested doing this).

Wimax can do 26,000 devices at full bore per tower (130 x 200 channels). What does that mean? Well it means that under normal use, lte is a great option. But wimax can just keep adding devices because it has the bandwidth to do it. This is why the cable companies have support it.

LTE will start to slow down a lot if too many people use it. All the evidence says that Wimax will not. In fact, I have noticed under load wimax becomes quicker. But it's all about marketing. Why did Clear and sprint say lte? Because wimax will cover where there is no LTE, and LTE will cover where there is no wimax. You can make a wimax/lte chip and LTE will be forced to share. They are just saying that LTE will happen, to make sure when a consumer is in a spot there they don't have wimax, they still have 4g coverage.

But those spots will get harder and harder to find. There are whole cities that are going to be using wimax. Even city buses will have a wimax towers on them.

LTE is like apple. Closed sourced, closed minded, closed ecosystem.

Wimax is like android, 100% open sourced, open minded, thus allowing any device in it's open ecosystem to be used for what ever you feel want.
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Question regarding the reach of 4G towers:

They say Minneapolis will be getting 4G later in the year. Will that reach out to my place if I live 15 miles away?

Edit: Nevermind, asked in regular forum.
 
Hey eieio,

Dont know if you have info but just thought I would ask, is there any word about Arizona and Wimax 4G Coverage?

In Phoenix & Tucson Az areas?
 
This is slightly off topic, but fully relate-able.

I was reading my Management text book earlier today for college and the chapter was on technology and information. I found this really cool statistic in there that made me immediately think of Sprint and Wimax/4G milestones.

If there is anyone out there still questioning the move to Wimax, know that the stats do not lie:
"First mover advantages, like those established by high-speed internet cable companies, can be sizeable. On average, First Movers earn a 30 percent market share compared to 19 percent for the companies that follow. Likewise, over 70 percent of market leaders started as first movers."
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These stats were taken from other sources but were used in my text to drive home the point of being a "First Mover" and the advantages you gain in the Information and Technology fields. (I can trackback the sources if anyone is interested.)

The way I see it, Sprint is the first mover in regards to new cell data and information plans (Wimax/4G) for the general public. There is a significant benefit out there for being the first mover. Move over LTE and here we come Iphone! :P
 
Good post, and I agree. Sprint having the first 4G network, and rolling it out in a big way is a HUGE advantage for them.
 
 
So as i go through all of this wealth of information (Thank You!!!!!)

i have one question as of now:
from what i had previously heard that the clear network was running 802.16M or WiMax 2.0, but the first of those videos seemed to hint that 802.16m would not drop until around now, which obviously would be too late for clear to implement into their network and the EVO. so would that mean that the clear/sprint network is running on WiMax 1.5 as of now?

(BTW sorry for the simple and most likely obvious question, just please bear with us)
 
OK, this is also probably going to seem like a dumb question....

What is QAM???

i looked it up and i see that it has to do with two separate carrier signals with one being 90 degrees out of phase with the other, but to me (that is i am assuming that RF reacts in a similar way to sound) that seems like both carrier signals would just cancel out the entire signal, and you would be left with nothing but data that is 2x the amplitude? and that doesn't seem like you would be able to transmit that...

if that made nay sense at all...
 
samplerate said:
(BTW sorry for the simple and most likely obvious question, just please bear with us)
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I am sorry, but they are running 1.0 in some places and 1.5 in others. Most phones will not beable to deal with 1.5.

At 35mbps, a standard laptop battery, 4.5 hours normal, will be gone in 20 mins.


About qam. I am going to get jumped all over for this. But I will try to explain it in a way you can understand. I know this is wrong but so please just calm down.

It is two signals.

OK picture this.

If you had a blue light and a red light. if they where shining at you from the same source they would look purple right? If they started to flash, blue, red, blue, red. It would be hard to make out.

Now picture you move them apart, the right one blue and the left one red.

If they started to flash it would be alot easier to see them right?

That is what QAM does.

Radio waves travel like this _-_-_-_-_-_-_(blue and red) (connect the lines)
Now can be set to read the signal at the down point or the up point.

So to the radio the wave -_-_-_-_-_-(blue) is different from _-_-_-_-_-(red) they off set the wave on the same signal.

This allows you to double the signal use.

Same wave carrying two data streams. One at the bottom(red), and one at the top(blue).

I probably confused you.
 
RiverOfIce said:
Radio waves travel like this _-_-_-_-_-_-_(blue and red) (connect the lines)
Now can be set to read the signal at the down point or the up point.

So to the radio the wave -_-_-_-_-_-(blue) is different from _-_-_-_-_-(red) they off set the wave on the same signal.

This allows you to double the signal use.

Same wave carrying two data streams. One at the bottom(red), and one at the top(blue).

I probably confused you.
Click to expand...

Looking at it again. I want to add something.

ok normal wave length _-_-_-_-_-_- (blue and red)

You then can rotate the wave to only read the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _(red) or - - - - - (blue). Which allows you to transmit them both carrying data as _-_-_-_-_-(red blue)

Allowing the wave to double the data.
 
I have also read that because Wimax depends on overlapping towers (again, think super long-reaching wifi), it's reliability also may be an advantage because redundancy is built-in or can be added much more quickly. With and LTE tower covering an entire metro-area, there could be problems if that single tower goes down or too many users try to access it a one time. Because it may be the only tower for many miles, not much can be done. Wimax will still have an advantage because the tower number and intervals can be more cost-effectively placed. So you may need more Wimax towers in NYC than you would for LTE but the coverage would be less impacted by network traffic.

At least that's what I recall from a document I ready about Wimax and LTE. The same document also predicted that both technologies would succeed. Wimax because of it's ability to scale and be put in locations were LTE likely would be too costly. LTE in areas where putting up one tower makes more sense because too many towers may be too costly or hard due to tough regulations.

Carriers, cable providers, and other data service providers are also welll aware that it's easier and less expensive to do wireless technology than ever before so they will want Wimax to succeed.

And as I've said before, there are Wimax towers in NYC owned and operated by other companies. If Sprint really wanted to access, I'm sure they could get it for the right price.
 
Rigmaster said:
I have also read that because Wimax depends on overlapping towers (again, think super long-reaching wifi), it's reliability also may be an advantage because redundancy is built-in or can be added much more quickly. With and LTE tower covering an entire metro-area, there could be problems if that single tower goes down or too many users try to access it a one time. Because it may be the only tower for many miles, not much can be done. Wimax will still have an advantage because the tower number and intervals can be more cost-effectively placed. So you may need more Wimax towers in NYC than you would for LTE but the coverage would be less impacted by network traffic.

At least that's what I recall from a document I ready about Wimax and LTE. The same document also predicted that both technologies would succeed. Wimax because of it's ability to scale and be put in locations were LTE likely would be too costly. LTE in areas where putting up one tower makes more sense because too many towers may be too costly or hard due to tough regulations.

Carriers, cable providers, and other data service providers are also welll aware that it's easier and less expensive to do wireless technology than ever before so they will want Wimax to succeed.

And as I've said before, there are Wimax towers in NYC owned and operated by other companies. If Sprint really wanted to access, I'm sure they could get it for the right price.
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Yes mostly true. And wimax will backhaul lte.
 
The one thing that kind of aggravates me is that neither LTE or WiMAX are really 4G. They both incorporate dimensions of what some are pushing for a 4G standards but as of now there is no 4G standard. The way 4G is being used is a reckless as it is going to confuse a lot of people with all these different technologies are using the same term and producing different results. From what I have read the 4G standard that is being sought encompasses a lot more than just the "speed factor" but many factors which neither LTE or WiMAX support in full. I Just wish companies would call them what they are and stop using 4G all over the place. It really is misleading. It's the same thing with the supposed IPhone 4G as all my friends are saying it will be faster than my N1 because it is 4G when in reality "if" Apple uses that name for the next IPhone it will be 4th gen of a product line not 4th Gen wireless technology as AT&T has no "4G" network. As people are becoming a little more technically savvy but still don't fully understand the definitions and meanings behind the technology companies are using this to trick and deceive via their marketing. idk it just aggravates me. :mad: LOL :o
 
Don't get aggravated. On the wirelesss side It's a fast moving technology and companies use the marketing term 4g as a way to attract new customers.

To us it means more seamless speed and that is good.

You can bet if it doesn't deliver there will be backlash right here. Stay tuned.

Fwiw I think it will deliver 1-3 mb. Which is a great improvement over 3G.

Hang on sir!


dilagable said:
The one thing that kind of aggravates me is that neither LTE or WiMAX are really 4G. They both incorporate dimensions of what some are pushing for a 4G standards but as of now there is no 4G standard. The way 4G is being used is a reckless as it is going to confuse a lot of people with all these different technologies are using the same term and producing different results. From what I have read the 4G standard that is being sought encompasses a lot more than just the "speed factor" but many factors which neither LTE or WiMAX support in full. I Just wish companies would call them what they are and stop using 4G all over the place. It really is misleading. It's the same thing with the supposed IPhone 4G as all my friends are saying it will be faster than my N1 because it is 4G when in reality "if" Apple uses that name for the next IPhone it will be 4th gen of a product line not 4th Gen wireless technology as AT&T has no "4G" network. As people are becoming a little more technically savvy but still don't fully understand the definitions and meanings behind the technology companies are using this to trick and deceive via their marketing. idk it just aggravates me. :mad: LOL :o
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dilagable said:
The one thing that kind of aggravates me is that neither LTE or WiMAX are really 4G.
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Sorry but 4g is like a marketing term. It actually does not really mean anything.

There is this loosely applied ideal of IMT Advance. But this like saying, "we would like child slavery to end today, please."

Not really going to happen.

What is going to happen is, like 3g, 4g is going to be marketed around and no one is really going to care about what the ideas behind it mean.

Just happy they have it or get mad they do not.
 
RiverOfIce said:
Sorry but 4g is like a marketing term. It actually does not really mean anything.

There is this loosely applied ideal of IMT Advance. But this like saying, "we would like child slavery to end today, please."

Not really going to happen.

What is going to happen is, like 3g, 4g is going to be marketed around and no one is really going to care about what the ideas behind it mean.

Just happy they have it or get mad they do not.
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Yup. It's like the "Web 2.0" moniker.
 
I just called Tmobile to ask them about my contract and make sure it was over. When I did the Rep asked me why I was asking. I told him I was going to switch to Sprint for the EVO and 4g network. At this point he was like... "WHATTT?!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!!!" at which point I replied "Because the EVO is far Superior than any other phone that you offer and with the upcoming 4G network it will make it that much better!". He then went on to tell me that I should stick with TMOBILE and wait for the MY TOUCH 2, and that this phone was a combination of the EVO and HD2. (lol) He also told me about the HSPA+ network that TMOBILE is rolling out this year. He said that this network is FARRR faster than 4G or LTE, with download speeds peaking at 20mbps.!!! I thanked him for his time and went on the internetz and did a little looking around. I found a few articles on HSPA+.

Here's one link on PCMAG's site
WiMAX vs. HSPA+: The Hands-On Test - WiMAX vs. HSPA+ Roundup | PCMag.com

From what I've read so far it seems true... HSPA+ will be faster than 4G/LTE.
I guess the only downside would be the 5GB cap on HSPA+ but its still to early to tell if they will even have a cap.
So my question is this... Has anyone here had any experience with HSPA+ and what are the advantages or disadvantages? Should I stick around and wait it out?? Or should I dive into the new 4G network and the EVO?
 
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