It’s not all over for WiMAX, Indian BWA operators has limited choice and may decide to enter market with WiMAX

By BP Tiwari (Beyond4G)

The LTE camp is euphoric about Qualcomm wining four circles which further got comprehensive media attention as Reliance controlled Infotel expressed their interest towards LTE. All the other players like Aircell ,Bharti, Augere and Tikona is watching Reliance controlled Infotel’s move for BWA deployment

The WiMAX camp spearheaded by Samsung, Hauwei and ZTE will try to convince Infotel for immediate WiMAX deployment to enter market in similar timelines as 3G. The strategy is not impending from the fact that they do not have a LTE roadmap, but rather their eagerness to enter the agreement with Infotel and secure their mobile data business.

The companies which are involved in TDD LTE system development are ALU, Ericson, Motorola, Huawei, ZTE, Nokia and Samsung to name few. Huawei has a working trial network in china shanghai, followed by Motorola who has also deployed TDD LTE indoors. Nokia Siemens in a bid to be the part of big LTE ecosystem from China has opened a new lab Hangzhou R&D facility.

Most of the suppliers are working towards ensuring their base stations are ready as early as possible to grab markets share where WiMAX is gaining momentum especially at TDD space in India. In bid to accelerate uptake and proliferation of LTE, suppliers are aggressively developing LTE systems and strengthening ecosystem. The case of LTE in India is especially promoted by QUALCOMM, Nokia, ALU and Ericsson.

The new BWA operators are midst of this battle of titans who are ensuring their interests in mobile data business in India. In this short article I would like to present my own findings to provide new BWA operators with sufficient data to decide their technology choice and decisions. The data is collected from various research reports, direct discussions and Industry news.

TDD LTE Base Station availability for India BWA operators

Supplier who has WiMAX experience and are working for LTE products will become the first to supply LTE TDD trial equipments in Indian market. It is expected that ALU, Motorola and Huawei can quickly demonstrate a working LTE TDD systems followed by Nokia and Ericsson in a quarter or later. Trials are expected to happen in Q4-2010 time-frame. Readiness to ship equipment for mass scale deployment of LTE TDD is not expected to happen before Q1/Q2-2011.

LTE TDD Devices Availability

The most interesting of all is the LTE TDD device ecosystems. Let me report some broad time-lines based on my data which I have captured over period of time talking to industry experts and analysis reports.

• The commercial availability of chipsets will start as early as Q3, 2010 and most of them would be ready by Q1-2011.
• Most reasonably it will at least take one quarter more for ODM’s to supply finished products i.e. Q2-2011.
• We have experienced from wimax that time to complete device interoperability’s cannot be shortened beyond a specific period of time and hence the devices ecosystem would most likely to be ready by Q2-2011.Only USB dongles are expected in this time frame.
• Expect additional one quarter for Indoor Devices

When do we see handsets and Smartphone’s in LTE TDD?

• The commercial availability of chipsets for handsets and Smartphone’s is not expected before Q2- 2011.
• Most reasonably it will at least take one to two quarter more for ODM’s to supply finished products.
• It is reasonable to expect readiness of handsets by 2012

It is my estimation that most operators will launch their 3G services by November 2010. Four 3G operators per circle are expected to launch services apart from the old mobile data players who are operational with Ev-Do Technology.

• It is critical for BWA operator to launch their mobile data services in similar timelines otherwise the operator will face intense competition and early market entry benefit will be lost.
• If BWA is launched in similar timeline as those in line with 3Goperators the chances of mobile data from BWA technology ( WiMAX today, LTE later ) can succeed in winning a bigger market share.

  

• Ability to offer QoS , time and volume based unlimited plans will play an important role is customer behaviors in choosing mobile broadband networks as wireline is very limited in country.
• It is imperative to launch services before 3G operators or parallel with 3G operators to take that early lead and outperform competition to become market leader.

Finally, I have presented that it is reasonable to expect a mature TDD LTE ecosystem evolving around only after Q2-2011 for commercial deployments. Up to this period acquiring customers and retaining market share could be the best strategy for BWA operators. WiMAX could be explored for immediate deployment. It is imperative for BWA operator to start the services in the similar timelines when 3G networks are made available to compete and take the early market entry advantage. A long term strategy could be centered on or around TDD-LTE with initial deployment happening in WiMAX with migration plan towards LTE TDD. The Migration to LTE can be achieved in phased manner as suppliers are developing LTE products and in most cases it can be seamlessly upgraded with new software’s and channel cards. Operator can also look to 16m migration which has an added advantage of reusing existing devices.

Note: Views expressed here are my own and by no means reflect my company’s opinion. You can ask for more detailed analysis report at admin@beyond4g.org