Ericsson recently announced that they will stop their WiMAX development and that they will instead accelerate their LTE development. The Register has taken up on this and has published a very interesting article by Wireless Watch on which companies are pushing WiMAX and which companies are rather opposed. So if you are interested in the technical and political quarrels between 3G, 3.5G, 3.9G, 4G, UMTS, HSPA, WiMAX, LTE and UMB this one is a must read.
The Big Supporters:
- Motorola
- Nortel
- Samsung
- Huawei
- ZTE
The Big Reluctant Followers:
- Alcatel-Lucent
- Nokia Siemens Networks
The Big Opposers:
- Ericsson
- Qualcom
My personal opinion: I think it’s good to have different technologies out there in the market that compete with each other. It speeds up development and it offers new starters in the wireless operator world possibilites which have not existed so far. As I discussed in more detail here, I think the consumer will benefit from this no matter in which direction the market will go.