WiMAX player Augere Wireless is reported to be exiting the Indian market

Sanjiv Ahuja’s emerging markets project, Augere Wireless is set to exit the Indian market due to regulatory uncertainty. The WiMAX firm will sell the 4G spectrum licences it holds in the two states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, according to local press.

A report by the Economic Times of India cited two company executives who said the firm had asked employees in the country to resign. In the meantime, CEO Lars Henrick Stork is said to have stopped all operational activities in India and has asked all employees in India to go on leave.

The company had won airwaves for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in 2010 and became the first 4G player in India to award an equipment contract in 2011, when it appointed Ericsson to roll out its network.

Augere Wireless’ executive management team have had a tough time of getting wireless services off the ground in markets due to regulatory concerns. The firm was set up by ex-Orange CEO Sanjiv Ahuja in 2007, who then went on to briefly become CEO at US satellite carrier LightSquared before resigning in February this year. However, he still remains executive chairman at Augere.

LightSquared’s  executive vice president Martin Harriman is also director at Augere, but the US carrier has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid efforts to resolve regulatory issues that have prevented it from launching its satellite service.

Augere was established with the mission statement of providing “Broadband for Everyone” and also currently has access to spectrum in Pakistan, Bangladesh Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.

It is not the only 4G spectrum holder player considering exiting the Indian market, Qualcomm is also rumoured to be in advanced talks with Bharti Airtel to sell its 4G permits in the four circles where it won spectrum in 2010. Bharti recently launched the country’s first LTE service in Kolkata. However, due to a shortage of LTE devices in the Indian market, subscribers will initially only be able to access the network through dongles.

Telecoms.com attempted to reach Augere Wireless for confirmation of its plans, but could not receive comment at the time of publishing.

Fumio Watanabe, CTO at Japan's UQ Communications

In this interview with Fumio Watanabe, CTO at Japanese communications provider UQ Communications (UQC) and executive director of its parent KDDI, we hear how Japanese mobile operators are fast running out of network capacity, how KDDI is using all of its access networks to distribute its own loads, and what plans its subsidiary company UQC has to launch WiMAX 2 services.

How do you believe the Japanese mobile market has evolved in recent times?

There are two big issues from the viewpoint of our several businesses: one is traffic growth, and the second one is congestion with over-the-top businesses.

We are seeing a very rapid increase in heavy data traffic, due to the increase of smartphones. Japanese customers’ usage of data is several times higher than European customers, so it is quite a serious problem for all operators in Japan. Therefore each operator has to consider some solutions.

In the case of KDDI, we have a basic strategy of “Three Ms”: multi-networks, multi-services and multi-devices. The multi-network is an important concept: in order to resolve the lack of capacity on its 3G network, KDDI is now using a combination of the many access technologies it has, including Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and CATV/FTTH networks. KDDI is the only operator that can provide all of those access technologies in Japan.

What stage is UQ Communications at with its WiMAX deployment?

From the point of view of KDDI, WiMAX is quite an important infrastructure to handle the heavy traffic of its customers. KDDI is now providing many smartphones that have not only Wi-Fi embedded, but also WiMAX. I believe that this type of policy to be successful.

Another important initiative by KDDI on the infrastructure side is the preparation of Wi-Fi public access points: over the course of this year, KDDI is preparing 100,000 Wi-Fi public access points. Many of those new Wi-Fi access points will use WiMAX for backhaul purposes, meaning that we can quickly deploy Wi-Fi public access spots.

We do not have to wait for our fibre-optic network to be connected up to the Wi-Fi public access points. It is quite easy to deploy Wi-Fi public access points, if we use WiMAX for backhaul.

What plans do you have to introduce WiMAX 2?

UQ has already started to develop WiMAX 2 infrastructure: we will deploy our new base stations  end of this year, capable of both WiMAX and WiMAX 2.

Even though WiMAX has a huge capacity, and UQ has more than 20,000 base stations nationwide, according to my predictions UQ will face a shortage of capacity within its WiMAX base stations some time this year. We definitely need WiMAX 2 to improve capacity!

What is the likely lifespan of WiMAX 2 capacity?

That depends on the percentage of WiMAX 2 capable devices: if we have a lot of WiMAX 2 capable devices, it will improve total capacity. How quickly UQ distributes WiMAX 2 capable devices is the key parameter here.

UQ has a plan to launch new WiMAX 2 capable devices, such as routers even before WiMAX 2 launch: that means that this WiMAX router will be a WiMAX 2 one having higher performance after we switch on the WiMAX 2 infrastructure.

Mr. Watanabe is speaking at the Broadband IP&TV Asia 2012 event, taking place in Malaysia on 15th-16th May. For more information and to register, please visit http://asia.broadbandworldforum.com

Ali Tabassi, chief operating officer for YTL Communications, Malaysia

Ali Tabassi, chief operating officer for YTL Communications, which operates a mobile broadband in Malaysia under the brand name of Yes, believes his company’s service offerings stand up to the brand promise. While in many developed markets mobile broadband coverage often suffers from poor coverage and lacklustre speeds, in Malaysia, Yes will let you stream YouTube videos or conduct video calls whether you’re in downtown Kuala Lumpar or in the mountains near the border of Thailand.

It’s something that Tabassi is looking forward to explaining more about at the Broadband ip&TV Asia conference, taking place on the 15th-16th May 2012, KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“Our initial plan when we launched our service in November of 2010 was to cover 65 per cent of the population and to have coverage throughout the peninsula of Malaysia, from day one. We were able to achieve that. We’re the only wireless operator that has the entire highway connected to mobile broadband, so users can connect to the internet, download movies watch YouTube and make calls.”

Tabassi claims that in optimal areas customers can enjoy speeds of up to 15Mbps peak, but says that most will see a consistent 4-6Mbps on the downlink and 1-2Mbps on the uplink. While the speeds on offer from don’t hit the peak speeds of the LTE networks in the US Yes prides itself on offering a consistent fast experience that is significantly faster than the current 3G network in the region.

Yes offer a combined package that offers voice, SMS and data together. “We built our philosophy based on innovation, based on being honest, innovative and bold, and delivering a true mobile broadband to our customers, with a voice application on that. So our vision is to be Malaysia’s fastest mobile internet with voice.

For users with a Yes Buzz Cloud phone, voice calls can be made over the WiMAX network on the same data plan. Tabassi says the voice feature is what differentiates Yes from all other WiMAX operators in the world and that for the operator voice is just another application on the network. Yes also contrasts with conventional carriers that have strict rules regarding tethering. It not only permits but encourages users to connect multiple devices to their account, with each device identified by a user ID and password rather than through a SIM card.

“We are the first operator in the world that has offered a converged service of voice and data. Voice is still very important – it’s something that everyone is used to. And they want to have the capability to have whatever devices they have available to them. We focus on delivering the ability for our customers to have multiple devices on same account. Each customer is given a user ID and password but also their own unique PIN number that is fully accessible throughout the world.  You can make or receive a call from anyone throughout the world and SMS, all at very affordable prices.”

Yes currently offers four devices, a USB dongle, a ‘Huddle’ mifi hotspot device that lets five devices connect, a home gateway device for fixed wireless that permits 20 devices to connect, and a ‘cloud’ phone with a integrated WiMAX connection.

“Our whole service offering is based on innovative ways of not utilising a SIM card for devices,” explains Tabassi. “We use a username and password for the authentication of our customers and their devices on our network. The customers can use one account with multiple devices on there, unlike other existing wireless operators that every device has its own SIM card, and a different package for that SIM card to be used. So we went with one affordable package that a customer can choose to use it for data, for voice, for SMS or any combination of those.”

Could it compete with fixed line services in the country? Tabassi doesn’t think so for now. “I don’t believe it will completely replace wireline. Wireline has an existing capital and there is a lot invested already in the ground. There will be more use of wireless to bridge the digital divide, and reach faster and at a lower cost than trying to dig the ground and lay our fibre. Most fibre connections will come down the road when there is a business need for it.”  Tabassi thinks that Yes’s coverage, will enable it to bring 4G speeds to areas outside of the reach of the main urban areas.

In a worldwide scale it is LTE, rather than Yes’s WiMAX, seems to have the momentum behind it. Will LTE play a role in the future of YTL’s network? “We have heard a lot of announcement and hype around other technologies”, say Tabassi, “but realistically when you look to see the amount of commercial roll-out we are not seeing it that broadly.” The focus though is on the customers, and there’s certainly no ideological issues preventing YTL from introducing LTE. “We are a wireless mobile broadband operator and not aligned to any one technology. We are in the business of offering the best service to our customers, at the most affordable rates. If other technologies become available that provide us with the same eco-system, economics and affordability [as WiMAX] that we can pass onto our customers we will definitely look into that and offer that service.”

An indicator of a future path to LTE for YTL Communications could be the fact that the Malaysian government is granting it 2.6GHz spectrum in 2013. Tabassi is praiseworthy of the Malaysian government approach to making spectrum available and not charging huge sums up front, which in turns benefits consumers through lower prices. “Today we operate on 2.3GHz spectrum and thanks to the government of Malaysia and their vision of expanding mobile broadband they have agreed to offering more spectrum, so we will get more at the 2.6GHz range, starting next year. The government knows that it is better to pass the savings onto the consumer by not necessarily putting a huge prices (on spectrum). So we applaud the government of Malaysia for not charging up front for the license of the spectrum but enabling the operator to expand the footprint so the customers can benefit.”

The challenge ahead for YTL Communications then will be how to continue to expand and reach new customers. “There are always challenges in building base stations in different areas,” Tabssi says. “We need to make sure we have the right mix, and continue to deliver the service that the customers demand. Ultimately, it will be what value added services we can offer to our customers. Not just about hype.”

The Broadband ip&TV Asia conference is taking place on the 15th-16th May 2012, KL Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Go to the website now to register your interest.

Clearwire has raised $715.5 to fund its LTE plans

US WiMAX standard-bearer Clearwire has announced that it has raised $715.5m from its shareholders to fund its deployment of 4G LTE technology.

The firm said it will use the funds for operations and maintenance as well as new network construction. It is currently in the process of adding “LTE Advanced-ready” technology to its 4G network. It has recently completed technical trials using the technology, claiming to have achieved download speeds exceeding 120 Mbps.

The company raised $384.1m from the sale of common shares and mobile operator Sprint, a majority shareholder in the firm, has exercised its preemptive rights to purchase Class B shares, which will provide Clearwire with an additional $331.4m and maintain Sprint’s majority share.

“This equity raise is a critical step for Clearwire to achieve its long-term business plan of creating the first wide-channel TDD-LTE 4G network in the US,” said Erik Prusch, president and CEO of Clearwire.

“The added resources will enable us to continue delivering 4G mobile broadband service to meet the rapidly growing demand in the industry. We remain ideally and uniquely positioned to serve both wholesale and retail customers well into the future.”

The company had been struggling in its attempts to supply ‘4G’ services based on WiMAX, as LTE became established as the global standard. However, it announced a new 4G LTE and WiMAX agreement with Sprint earlier this month worth up to $1.6bn over the next four years,

Towards the end of last year the firm began looking to sell off its spectrum—considered the firm’s greatest asset in light of its technological isolation—in a bid to raise funding. However, this summer, it announced that it had postponed those plans  with CFO Hope Cochrane saying that: “With the near-term capital needs of our current business now satisfied, we will be extremely judicious with our spectrum assets.” The latest funds raised suggest that it will no longer be forced to sell that spectrum.

Jayhun Mollazade, CEO of Azqtel. Its WiMAX network covers the city of Baku, Azerbaijan

Jayhun Mollazade, CEO of Azqtel, was a man with a vision. As an Azerbaijani citizen living in the USA he saw an opportunity to dramatically improve the ageing and archaic soviet telecoms infrastructure of the former Soviet state.

Over the past five years, Azerbaijan has put an emphasis on developing its ICT sector and as a result the country now has three mobile carriers along with several ISPs offering ADSL based fixed-line internet connectivity. But while the broadband market was growing by 30-40 per cent each year only one of the local carriers was offering 3G services and Mollazade and his partners saw that there was a real opportunity to offer high speed wireless data services.

At that time though, while LTE had a large amount of buzz and expectation about it, as far as building a real-world commercial network, the only real game in town was WiMAX as Mollazade told Telecoms.com. “In 2009 there were discussions about LTE at the Mobile World Congress, but WiMAX was more established with certified products and affordable prices – LTE was more like something which may come. [When it did] the equipment, modems, end-user device – all of them were exorbitantly expensive, so we decided to go with WiMAX and to gain a customer base of subscribers.”

Initially, Azqtel’s licence only covered downtown Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, but in 2010 the service raised funds and was relaunched under the brand name Sazz, as a service that now covers the metropolitan areas of the capital Baku, and the nearby town of Sumquayit, covering a total of around four million people.

The service currently offers speeds of 10Mb/sec, which is on par with the real world speeds seen in most LTE networks running round the world. The price of 25 New Manat, around US$32, is affordable. Mollazade told Telecoms.com that the service has picked up thousands of customers in the past year, and is already cash-flow positive.

However, on a global scale it’s clear that while the winds of technology are driving the LTE ship forward at a pace, WiMAX is virtually dead in the water. What then are Azqtel’s contingency plans for the future?

“We are looking in the next couple of years to be in line with the wireless capabilities of broadband”, admits Mollazade. “But we haven’t made any specific decisions”, he adds. “Technology always changes. Maybe five years from now there might be something different.”

Mollazade tacitly admits though that a transition to LTE is very much on the agenda, though exactly what it does choose to do is tied to what happens in terms of spectrum. As a WiMAX operator, Azqtel has a generous 60MHz of 3.5GHz, and though that’s frequency that isn’t widely deployed for LTE it’s an option it would take up if it could. “WiMAX operators round the world are at 3.5GHz and all of them, including us, are really strongly urging vendors to come up with a migration for LTE based on 3.5GHz. However, if we decide to go to LTE we would ultimately require LTE licenses if 3.5GHz is not going to work for us.”

“It’s all going to depend on a number of factors. Whether LTE will be available on 3.5GHz or not, whether we can acquire 2.6GHz or 2.3GHz or 700MHz frequencies. Or whether we need to skip all of this, and wait for LTE Advanced. We are weighing all options. But at the moment the customers in Baku are happy with what we are offering.”

In particular they are happy with the fully unlimited service that they currently enjoy. Is that a situation that Mollazade thinks is sustainable going forward? “It’s a true unlimited. In our legal contracts we warn that we may restrict user torrents, but quite frankly at this early stage, we don’t have any policies. As an operator we will be looking into given priority to VoIP over browsing and over YouTube, so at the moment we are looking at different technologies that will give us a DPI solution. However, at the moment with WiMAX we think we can keep unlimited. That gives us an advantage. The other carrier’s unlimited [services] are twice as expensive.”

In the meantime though, the focus is on expansion with the aim to move beyond its current city limits. “We are planning to expand nationwide. We have secured some contracts on education, in health and sports. We are planning in 2013 to go beyond the capital. Azerbaijan has a developing economy, but there is a need for broadband in the second, third and fourth cities. And we have a plan to deliver triple-play across the nation.”

Mollazade is quick to highlight the advantage its service has over the rival fixed-line ADSL services. “ADSL customers have to wait for a couple of weeks for it to come to them. And they normally get half [the performance] that they pay for – and we add a nomadic experience. So for a quality, speed and price perspective I think we are more competitive.”

The big challenges over the next 12 months Mollazade says will be keeping a close watch on capacity, particularly as its customer base grows in order to maintain the three pillars the company is based on, good service, affordability and good customer support.

Mollazade is enthused about the possibilities that Broadband Middle East and conference, taking place in Dubai in March will provide, such as the chance to learn first-hand about how others in a similar position have dealt with change. “We are also curious to know about the experience of others, so we are looking at Sprint and Clearwire and P1 and Yes in Malaysia.

He also is enthusiastic about selling the benefits of the Azerbaijan market, which with its oil and gas economy presents an economy with great investment potential. “The market has not reached yet its potential in terms of its subscribers. It’s still in play, and I would urge investors and technology groups and applications service providers to look at this market with more attention. It’s has huge infrastructure development based on oil and gas cash. There are opportunities here.”

Jayhun Mollazade, CEO of Azqtel is speaking on Day One of the Broadband MEA conference, taking place on the 25-27th March 2012, at the Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina, Dubai, UAE. Go to the website now to register your interest.

2011: Predictions for the year ahead

A report from US firm Pyramid Research which details its expectations for the telecoms market in 2012 predicts that managed-network IPTV services will be in one per cent of households worldwide next year.

The global telecoms market is projected to grow four per cent in 2012, compared to seven per cent this year, with the weaker growth attributed to rising volatility and uncertainties facing the global economy. Total worldwide service revenues are expected to reach $1tn (2.4 per cent of global GDP) in 2012.

Mobile broadband is expected to be one of the largest growth areas for telecoms next year, particularly as the price of high-speed mobile computing devices such as smartphones and tablets come down, enabling further penetration in emerging markets.

Broadband penetration is expected to pass 10 per cent globally next year, creating opportunities to provide consumers with new information, entertainment and value-added services.

Pyramid Research does however expect to see a slowdown in Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) deployments worldwide in favour of VDSL rollouts, due to the latter being a much less expensive way to extend higher capacities to customers. This is “certainly the case” in Western European markets, where operators are focused on VDSL expansion.

The largest markets for fibre rollout will continue to be Russia and China, which are favouring a less-expensive Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) versus FTTH configuration, according to the report. Middle Eastern operators will continue their push for last-mile fibre access, particularly in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, with FTTx rollout driving IPTV adoption in a number of countries in the region.

Another bold prediction made by the research firm is that we will witness the beginning of the end of WiMAX in Asia next year, as operators in countries such as Taiwan and Malaysia opt to use LTE instead. Waning operator support is expected to result in declining vendor support and higher prices for the technology and, crucially, the price of end-user devices, which “ultimately determine a technology’s success”, according to Pyramid.

Qualcomm admitted it only bid for the licences to stifle WiMAX

Qualcomm stands to lose over $1bn and its wireless broadband service permits in India, after a spokesperson for the Department of Telecoms (DoT) said that the company’s application for licences was invalid.

A senior official from India’s DoT has said that the company did not apply for and acquire licences within three months of the wireless broadband airwaves (BWA) auction. Although the auctions ended in June 2010, Qualcomm did not apply for permits until December.

The DoT concluded that “this was beyond the validity period for applying and acquiring the relevant licence”, and the official added that Qualcomm was informed about the application rejection over the weekend.

Qualcomm shelled out over $1bn (Rs 4.9bn) for permits in Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala in the June 2010 auction and the cancellation of permits could result in Qualcomm forfeiting the entire fee that it had paid. However, a final decision on the amount will be made after the DoT has evaluated the company’s response.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs admitted last year that the firm’s spectrum purchase was a deliberate bid to block the progress of WiMAX technology in India, in favour of LTE.

“I really believe that [the BWA] spectrum was all headed for WiMAX,” he said at the time. “Our big bet is on LTE and we wanted to make sure that there was a place for LTE in India. We were concerned that if both of those bands had gone to WiMAX it would have helped to reinvigorate that ecosystem.”

Sequans is developing dual-mode LTE/Wimax devices

Sequans, the 4G chipset maker, is working with Malaysian operator Packet One and networking provider Greenpacket to develop reference designs for dual-mode LTE/WiMAX devices. The intention is to create a complete eco-system of 4G networking solutions and devices by the end of 2011.

“We are testing Sequans’ system-on-chip technology to develop LTE reference designs, including a dual-mode WiMAX/LTE reference design for our operator customers primarily in Asia, CALA and Middle East,” said, James Wang, senior vice president of innovation, strategies and development at Greenpacket.  “We intend to offer our solutions to early adopters of LTE such as P1 in support of its LTE/WiMAX coexistence strategy.”

The move is part of the recently announced 4Sight program, which is aimed at Sequans creating technologies enabling operators to smoothly transition from WiMAX to LTE.

Michael Lai, chief executive of Packet One said that, “we are collaborating with Sequans because of Sequans’ operator-proven WiMAX and LTE chipset technology and because of the company’s real-world experience in deploying operator-certified 4G technology in high volume around the world.”

Packet One launched a WiMAX operation in Malaysia in 2008 and is now in the process of transitioning to LTE. The move to create an eco-system of devices is an important one for the operator as it looks to lower the costs as it moves over to the global LTE standard.

“As ever, the availability of devices is a limiting factor”, Lai told Telecoms.com in a recent interview. “Once it starts to get more mature, especially from the handset and smartphone perspective, we will move a lot more aggressively into the TD-LTE market. There’s no need to move our 300,000 subscribers to LTE for the time being until the eco-system in terms of handsets is there.”

Packet One expects to have 65 per cent of the local market covered with its WiMAX/LTE network by the end of 2012.

“Greenpacket and P1 are taking a leading position in the 4G world by establishing a dual-4G network while they transition to LTE and this will benefit not only P1 and its customers, but also other operators who adopt this strategy,” said Georges Karam, Sequans CEO, in a statement. “P1 now has the flexibility to rollout LTE at the rate they choose and have it coexist peacefully with WiMAX, and P1 customers will have devices that work in any part of the network at any time.”

The sixth annual LTE Asia conference, takes place in Suntec, Singapore, on the 5-7th September 2011

Sprint Nextel's CTO Stephen Bye

Ahead of the LTE North America conference in Dallas on the 8-9 November, at which he will be a keynote speaker, Telecoms.com speaks to Stephen Bye, CTO of US carrier Sprint Nextel.

As the world transitions away from 3G to next generation mobile services, the US market in particular is in a state of flux. MetroPCS and market leader Verizon have launched LTE and AT&T is due to follow suit imminently; and if regulators allow, AT&T will next year swallow Deutsche Telekom’s US play, T-Mobile.

Big changes are also afoot for third-place mobile player Sprint. The company drew the first ‘4G’ blood when, in late 2008 and in conjunction with partner Clearwire, it launched a WiMAX network across the US. However, it is LTE that has come to dominate the next generation mobile network landscape over the last couple of years, and it’s an open secret that Sprint will soon be making a move towards LTE.

When Telecoms.com spoke to Stephen Bye, chief technology office of Sprint, that move had yet to be made official. What the firm has been talking about is its Network Vision program, a comprehensive network upgrade strategy that, as Bye says, will enable it to, “very easily upgrade and support whatever’s coming down the pipeline”.

If any operator is experienced enough to take on the challenges of a new technology it is Sprint, which as Bye wryly puts it, supports “an interesting mix of different technologies”. This is a reference to the fact that as well as the WIMAX at 2.5GHz, it also runs a CDMA EVDO 3G network at 1900MHZ as well as, uniquely, an iDen network, operating at 800MHz.

Operating all these technologies together makes for a large, bulky and relatively inefficient macro  base station set-up, something the firm’s Network Vision upgrade is intended to address, by moving to one-cabinet, multi-mode units.

“We’re putting into place basestations that allow us to use different RF technologies on different frequency bands,” Bye explains. “So for instance on one side we can have a combination of CDMA, LTE or WIMAX across different radio bearers, be it 800, be it 1.9, on all the frequency bands that we have support for. We’re well on the way to deploying Network Vision, which gives us the flexibility to carry a lot of traffic over different bands on the basestations on the core network”.

While Bye isn’t able to nail Sprint’s colours to the LTE mast just yet, he says that the network refresh will give Sprint, “the opportunity to upgrade to whatever technology we decide to adopt going forward—at a much lower cost. It future proofs our business and it also gives us the flexibility to take advantage of other spectrum, as and when that comes to market”.

Bye also says that, as well as enabling it to keep up with next generation mobile technology, Network Vision will also be of great benefit to those replying on the older 3G CDMA network. “There are things that we’re doing to substantially improve the coverage and capacity on that network. Because what you can buy today in terms of technology is far superior to what we were deploying five or ten years ago. The one thing that we will see is much better coverage and much better quality.”

At the time Sprint was hoping that its early move into WiMAX would enable it to build up an unassailable lead in 4G. Of course it didn’t work out that way and Verizon’s relatively early move into LTE has, to a large extend headed it off at the pass. But has that speculative WiMAX play given Sprint any first mover advantage at all?

“There’s a benefit to that experience to having been in the market earlier, and the experience of building and managing capacity in that network is not lost us as we go forward,” he says. “How do you engineer the network? How do you optimise the network? How do you tune the protocols to maximise performance? That absolutely gives us a competitive advantage. And that’s really the benefit of having time to market.”

It can also be argued that, on a technical level, there are a lot of similarities between LTE and WiMAX, as Bye points out. “That knowledge that we have developed over WiMAX is easily transferable and extendable to any other OFDM technology, because WiMAX is OFDM – LTE is no different from WIMAX in that respect. The structure of the MAC layer and the uplink is different but there’s a lot of learning about our technology that is easily transferred over.”

Bye also offers up some thoughts on the FDD vs TDD debate running in the industry and believes that it’s not an either-or scenario. In fact, he points out that the selection of one over the other is actually unlikely to be a technology decision.

“The spectrum allocation will determine which of those solutions you end up deploying. If the licences are granted in paired blocks, then FDD is really only the feasible solution you can use. You can argue the merits of one technology over the other, but it really comes down to the licensing and the band structure that will determine how much TDD and what FDD you use, and how do you maximise the available spectrum that you have. So it’s likely that you’ll end up with a combination of the two.”

The only real downside, he says, is that having to support both will inevitably push up the complexity, and therefore cost, of end-user devices. That said, he believes this to be a price worth paying in order to solve the data challenges all carriers are facing.

“If we can at least get to a common baseband technology, then I think there will be economies of scale that will be afforded by that”.

Bye also reveals that Sprint will be using small cells to ensure that it deals adequately with capacity issues which, like all carriers in the industry, is a challenge that Sprint is facing. In fact it’s been a victim of its own success according to Bye. “Of all the carriers in America, we probably have the highest penetration of smartphones and of 4G devices—we are seeing tremendous consumption on those”.

It certainly not an issue that’s going to go away, especially if Sprint is looking to continue to stand alone in offering an unlimited data package, as it currently does for its WiMAX customers—something of which Bye is evidently proud. “We have an unlimited data plan and we are the only carrier in North America that continues to have one. And of course that is good for our customers. Most carriers in North America have chosen to go for tiered data offerings and that just makes it complex for customers. But we’ve stayed with a simple unlimited offer.”

One topic that draws no response from Bye is Sprint’s deal with LightSquared. As part of the proposal, LightSquared would pay Sprint a total of $20bn towards the build out of an LTE network, and Sprint would then lease those towers back from LightSquared as a customer. According to reports, LightSquared owner Philip Falcone has already written to its investors informing them of the deal, but with the would-be wholesale LTE operator currently mired in regulatory troubles over its GPS interference issues, Bye declines to comment.

But he is happy to reiterate Sprint’s robust views on the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile USA merger. “We actually think it’s bad for customers,” he said. “We think that the deal is basically an opportunity for AT&T to consolidate and remove a viable competitor from the market. We think customers will be the losers in that and we think the industry will suffer for that consolidation, given the market structure post that kid of merger. That being said, what with being the 3rd largest in the US with or without that deal, we still have 50m+ customers. We just think that that proposed merger is no good for consumers and not good for the industry. We are very public in our opposition to that deal.”

For the time being, though, Sprint has enough consolidation issues of its own to focus on. It is widely accepted that the firm’s mix of network technologies is unsustainable and the firm’s future will look a lot brighter once it has embarked on the next stage of its technological evolution.

The LTE North America 2011 conference takes place on the 8-9 November 2011 in Dallas, Texas.

The GSMA has told Taiwan that LTE has won the NGMN battle over WIMAX

The GSM Association (GSMA) has suggested to the government of Taiwan that the country should move away from WiMAX and focus instead on LTE, in order to take advantage of the economies of scale provided by the now mainstream next generation mobile standard.

Taiwan has been a big backer of WiMAX technology, predominantly due to the backing of global computer chip maker Intel. The country has no less than six WiMAX operators: FarEasTone, Fitel, Global Mobile, Tatung, Vee Telecom, and VMAX Telecom.

However, local confidence in the technology has been shaken since Intel closed its Taiwanese WiMAX office in 2010.

WiMAX has seen its global market share greatly shrink over recent years, while globally LTE has dominated operators’ agendas over the last 12 months.

“Although local demand will drive the WiMAX market, given the smaller market size in terms of lower demand, it is in Taiwan’s best interest to focus on the manufacturing of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) wireless networking and LTE equipment rather than WiMAX equipment,” Chris Perera, GSMA director of spectrum policy and regulatory affairs for the Asia Pacific region told the second 4G International Forum in Taipei.

Perera also offered called upon the local regulator, the National Communications Commission (NCC), make it easier for local WiMAX operators deploy spectrum best suited for LTE, such as the 700MHz band.

“The NCC’s most important task is to ensure that the reallocation of spectrum in the 700MHz band is as efficient as possible. The regulator must also facilitate changes in WiMAX operators’ licensing conditions to deploy LTE,” she said.

Recently, Michael Lai, of Malaysian operator Packet One told Telecoms.com that it plans to refarm 20MHz of its 2.3GHz bandwidth from WIMAX to LTE. Lai also hopes to gain access to 700MHz spectrum for LTE as soon as it becomes available.

The sixth annual LTE Asia conference, takes place in Suntec, Singapore, on the 5-7th September 2011