But it should be mentioned that while EV-DO and HSPA still have some life left in them, they largely are considered stop-gap measures until 4G is ready. As already mentioned, service providers want to migrate to 4G because of the lower cost per bit that it affords, thus making delivering services a much more profitable and less risky endeavor; creating more ease of management; and allowing for better service development and integration across networks. Also, because of the spectrum over which 4G will be offered, they will offer better indoor penetration than existing cellular technologies. And 4G spectrum uses much wider channels than cellular, which means it can better handle real-time apps at scale.
Elsewhere on the broadband wireless front, the future for public Wi-Fi is fading fast. While there is a large embedded base of Wi-Fi in the enterprise and homes that will endure until upgrade time, it faces competition from HSPA and 4G. The nature of the hotspot “will become like payphones because they are fixed locations,” said Bhikshesvaran. “And mobile broadband changes user behavior in fundamental ways inside the home. With embedded mobile broadband, I can get Internet radio anywhere inside the home or out — so why [use] Wi-Fi?”
All this said, the bottom line is that 4G is coming, and it’s going to be disruptive. Building networks to support it certainly will require a major shift in current planning, zoning and opex, including a need to update backhaul to accommodate immense amounts of traffic flowing across 10MHz and 20MHz channels. But considering the much lower cost-per-bit required to deliver services over the all-IP, flat architectures that LTE and WiMAX will allow (on the order of four times less), the barriers aren’t as high as they were with past new builds, particularly if the services are as compelling as the 4G players would lead you to believe.
“It’s going to be an interesting four-to-eight quarters,” said Seymour.
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