Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Donny Jackson

Seybold disagreed. “I think UMB is a great technology, and I think it will be used by other people in other parts of the world,” he said. “I think it will be used by Sprint.”

A key to UMB deployments internationally likely will be adoption by Korean carriers that traditionally have been on the cutting edge of the CDMA migration path. But Jackson said he is not sure that the Korean operators will opt for UMB.

“The Koreans have pent-up, mixed feelings toward Qualcomm,” he said. “It's a love-hate relationship. Qualcomm has supplied them with world-beating technology, but they've exacted a heavy price for it. The enthusiasm for WiMAX at Samsung speaks to a very keen interest in moving away from what are seen as proprietary technologies.”

While Qualcomm officials would prefer that carriers adopt UMB as their 4G technology, all analysts interviewed noted that Qualcomm has significant intellectual property for LTE, as well.

“Qualcomm doesn't care, because they have intellectual property for both UMB and LTE,” Seybold said. “So anybody who shorts Qualcomm's stock based on this announcement doesn't understand.”

With the two largest U.S. wireless carriers — Verizon and AT&T — committed to using LTE in their 4G networks, the chances are much greater that a nationwide broadband network will be an LTE network.

“If AT&T or Verizon gets [the D Block spectrum], it will be LTE,” Seybold said. “If someone like Front-line Wireless gets it, they might be stupid enough to make it WiMAX. And I say stupid because it's real clear that the savings to the first-responder community is going to be LTE technology, not WiMAX, because of the sheer volume of product that will be available for LTE.”

Jackson generally echoed this sentiment. “If I were a betting man, [LTE is] where I would put my money, but it's still not clear,” Jackson said. “I'm hard-pressed to think of other technologies that might end up sitting in there, but it's still unclear.”

LTE DESIGN GOALS

Peak data rate

• 100 MB/s downlink within a 20 MHz spectrum allocation
• 50 MB/s uplink within a 20 MHz spectrum allocation

User throughput (avg. per MHz)

• Downlink: three to four times better than Release 6 HSDPA
• Uplink: two to three times better than Release 6 HSUPA

Spectrum efficiency

• Downlink: three to four times better than Release 6 HSDPA
• Uplink: two to three times better than Release 6 HSUPA

Mobility

• Optimized for speeds of less than 15 km/hr
• High performance at speeds up to 120 km/hr
• Link maintained at up to 350 km/hr

Coverage

• Full performance up to 5 km
• Slight degradation from 5 to 30 km
• Operation up to 100 km should not be precluded by standard

Source: 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

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