Motorola bullish about LTE, but still hedging its bets with WiMAX too

Motorola believes that live Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G mobile broadband technology will be deployed within the next two years. As LTE is frequency-agnostic early roll-outs will probably be over 700MHz in the US, and 2526MHz elsewhere. So rather than replacing existing 3G networks, Motorola expects to see LTE being deployed first over newly-available spectrum, such as that freed up by the retirement of analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts.

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UMTS – or 3G as it's generally known – has been a big success since flat-rate data tariffs aimed at consumers have started to appear, rather than the business market it was originally aimed at. Meantime, high-bandwidth uses such as YouTube and other video sites, along with Bittorrent media downloads, "are driving wireline internet through the roof," as Rick Mostaert, Motorola's director for LTE Product Management, puts it, and this is spreading to mobile internet users too. "You've got to look at the number of bits per user per month," he says. 3G's bandwidth runs out quite quickly: a gigabyte or more per user per month, and on 3G, operators need to split cells up and deploy more kit – but LTE prevents this. According to Mostaert , just 15–20% of mobile users using bandwidth-intensive services such as YouTube will be enough to make LTE viable.

Mostaert expects to see real-world deployment by early adopters in the second half of 2009 and first quarter of 2010, first as data networks for mobile broadband, then later for voice traffic. He doesn't see the other mobile broadband contender, WiMAX, as being a threat. Motorola is supporting both technologies. "There's a lot of commonality in the technology," he says, "and we're leveraged highly across both technologies." But when it comes to the business models, he believes "there's not a lot of overlap. It's down to the operators – they have decided which they're backing, and now it's up to them."

While LTE is aimed squarely at cellphones and USB wireless dongles for laptops, there are different models for WiMAX, he says. "For example, one model is a WiMAX chip in every device, like Wi-Fi is now – but that's just one of many models." Like Wi-Fi, in this scenario, WiMAX becomes a component of other devices, something the customer gets included in a computer and possibly pays for service later, whereas LTE will be sold by cellphone operators, with access equipment often bundled with contracts.

Flat-rate data tariffs have proved to be a big driver for 3G. "It's taking off like crazy where the price is right," says Mostaert, "and it's the pricing structure that's driving it. It was aimed at businesses, but now, it's consumers." Motorola's hope is that the same proves true for 4G equipment based on LTE, but "it's difficult to compete with a $10-per-month home deal", he remarks. On the other hand there are prospects for new revenue streams. As a manufacturer of base-station equipment, routers and products for bandwidth monitoring and management Motorola thinks about new services, such as the ability to inject advertising into the customers' mobile data stream.

Although Mostaert foresees deployment initially being on the 2526MHz international band of frequencies, alongside other regional ones, he believes that LTE may be used on the 2.1GHz UMTS band as well in areas where 3G has not yet been rolled out. It may even ultimately be profitable to redeploy on the 900MHz and 1800MHz GSM bands, he says, especially 900, due to its superior propagation.

LTE could prove particularly important in developing economies, where it could be rolled out instead of widespread domestic wireline broadband. China is a particularly important market, and China Mobile is working on the more frequency-frugal TDD-LTE, which uses Time Division Duplexing to share a single radio channel between downlink and uplink. Elsewhere, FDD – Frequency Division Duplexing – is more common.

(lghp)