At the moment, there's three front-runners for the fourth-generation wireless broadband crown: 3GPP LTE (Long Term Evolution), mobile WiMax and 3GPP2 UMB (Ultra Mobile Broadband). All three standards will offer low latency and theoretical max speeds that will eventually make current U.S. EVDO and HSDPA speeds (and even some home landline connections) seem anemic.
Sprint, of course, is hitching their wagon to Mobile WiMax under the Xohm name. AT&T has said they're planning on migrating toward LTE. Verizon Wireless wants to use the same standard as GSM/HSPA partner Vodafone, and they collectively may choose LTE. Business Week notes that Verizon's decision will have a huge impact on vendors.
Analysts say a move by Verizon Wireless to LTE or WiMAX could prove a major setback for the CDMA family of products, a $43 billion market for handsets and infrastructure dominated by players including Qualcomm, Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), LG Electronics (LGEJY), Samsung, and Nortel Networks (NT). Qualcomm and LG are among the most exposed to the CDMA market in terms of revenue and profit, but Alcatel-Lucent could suffer the most. Some $2.4 billion in Alcatel-Lucent revenue from CDMA gear would be wiped away.
At the moment, the magazine suggests that UMB is playing a distant third fiddle to LTE and Mobile WiMax. Groups like Parks Associates, meanwhile, don't technically think WiMax belongs in the "4G" category:
Although WiMAX supporters claim that 4G is WiMAX, we believe this is a wrongful assertion. Future versions of WiMAX may become potential 4G candidates, and OFDM modulation will be a key component of 4G, but 4G is definitely not WiMAX. WiMAX has served as a catalyst for 3GPP and 3GPP2 to accelerate their next round of innovation, adopting OFDM modulation and implementing MIMO and other smart antenna technologies. Both camps have clearly defined their paths toward 4G.
Parks notes that while Mobile WiMax does have an advantage because it will be first to market, the initial speeds offered by the technology are really only going to be marginally better than existing services. LTE and UMB, meanwhile, will theoretically be able to offer 100Mbps/50Mbps and 280Mbps/60Mbps, respectively, but won't be seen in the wild for some time.
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