Cisco makes the case for WiMAX at Mobile World Congress

There is a big buzz at Mobile World Congress this year around Long Term Evolution (LTE) radio area networks. This is a radio access technology which Cisco fully supports and which promises to bring much greater speed and bandwidth to mobile networks.

Hang on, though. This is pretty much what was promised with WiMAX last year. So what has happened to 2008’s great hope for high-speed mobile access?

To help clarify the issue, Brett Galloway, Senior Vice President for the Wireless and Security Technology Group at Cisco sat in on a round table hosted by Intel. And the answer, it would seem, is that both have a bright future—although possibly not at the same time.

According to the panel, LTE is still about five years away from production deployment.

For operators wanting to deliver higher access speeds, and help create additional revenues, or for governments wanting to stimulate economies through improved broadband access, that is a long time to wait. WiMAX, which is in production environments now, can plug the gap.

Says Galloway: “WiMAX presents several opportunities. In 2009 we will see our customers invest in WiMAX radio technology, but also WiMAX as a solution. This will allow us to add applications such as telemedicine on top of the core connectivity applications.”

Posted by Jason Deign at 02:01PM PST

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