This refers to the interview with Qualcomm’s Kanwalinder Singh ‘Standalone 3G players can’t survive’ (August 14). Singh’s comments about Wimax are incorrect. Wimax enables the adoption of broadband internet access at high speeds and can serve 60 million broadband subscribers in the next four years. The average cell radius of Wimax is similar to that of 3G and Wimax’s mobile broadband serves all segments of users. A strong business case for WiMAX exists and is evident in the fact that many
Indian telcos have business models for Broadband Wireless Access — using existing installed passive infrastructure, they will be EBITDA positive in the third year.3G spectrum will be used mostly for the higher tele-density needs of voice services in dense urban areas and under a predominantly voice-loaded network, it can only be used for slow speeds of 512 Kbps compared to Wimax’s average speeds of over 6 to 8 mbps downlink and 1 to 4 mbps uplink. These are very slow speeds compared to Wimax. That is why the 3G industry wants everyone to wait for LTE till 2014.
C.S Rao
Chairman, WiMAX Forum India Chapter