WiMax Forum Looking at FDD Profile
Posted on January 25, 2008 By: Mike, VoIP Facts: The Blog email author
Filed Under Commentary
Earlier this week, the CTO of WiMax vendor Airspan, Paul Senior, told telcoms.com that the WiMax Forum would have an FDD profile for Mobile WiMax within the next six months. The Forum was quick to back off, a spokesman saying later that while it has been discussed, no timeline has been set.
Mobile WiMax, as of now, uses Time Division Duplex (TDD) in which uplinks and downlinks are given time slots on a single channel. The Telcos and standards committees have gone with Frequency Division Duplex (FDD), where uplinks and downlinks are paired on two different channels, for its 3G and 4G networks. Most of the spectrum available is configured for FDD, as is the 700MHz band being auctioned by the FCC.
Apparently, the difference in the two technologies makes TDD more “data-centric”, whereas FDD is better oriented towards voice, today’s networks being considered more “voice-centric”. ThirdPipe.com believes that “a new variation in the Mobile Wimax spec…will likely be ready for prime time before 4G gets off the ground”.
Senior says they have been working on the profile for the past twelve months, but have kept it under the table for fear of upsetting their chances of getting the IMT-2000 approval for Mobile WiMax. The ITU endorsed WiMax in May of last year for the 2.6GHz swath of spectrum, thinking that TDD WiMax would sit in 50MHz between two 70MHz bands configured for FDD. With an FDD profile in place, Mobile WiMax could score a coup for the whole swath.
The next generation of WiMax, called WiMax2 or WiMagic (802.16m), has already been accepted by the European Commission for research, and is expected to stand up well to the 3GPP’s 4G Long Term Evolution standard, with speeds up to 100Mbps mobile and 1Gbps fixed. LTE has been said recently to be on track for deployment in 2010, whereas Mobile WiMax is expected to be ready for widespread deployment in 2009, just about the time that television leaves the airwaves.
Proponents of WiMax suggest that with an FDD profile being ready by 2009, the technology would be well positioned for use in the 700 band of spectrum being auctioned off now by the FCC. Of the two major WiMax players in the U.S., Clearwire is not bidding, and Sprint Nextel, having all the WiMax spectrum it can handle, is also not in the game. Nevertheless, the winning bidders can use whatever technology they choose, as long as it conforms to the FCC’s rules and regulations.
We already know that the two major Celcos participating in the auction, AT&T and Verizon, will be using LTE for their 4G networks. Maybe we’ll see some of the winners of block B, broken into 734 local regions, opt for Mobile WiMax technology. A new generation of WISPs entering the wireless marketplace could be just what we need to bolster development and competition, something badly needed in U.S. wireless industry.
Popularity: 53% [?]
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Trackback URL: http://voip-facts.net/voip-blog/wimax-forum-looking-at-fdd-profile/trackback/
Comments
Leave a Reply
