Why is the press soooo in the tank for LTE??

All of the chatter about  4G wireless in the big tech media is really beginning to annoy me.  The wireless broadband world as of right now is 100% Wimax, and it works. In fact this post comes to you tonight via a Wimax connection that outperforms AT&T’s best DSL offering in my neighborhood, and lags behind Time Warner’s pricey 15MBPS service a bit. So, 4G wireless is here, working and destined to improve.  Today it is 100% Wimax. You’d never know that from reading posts in the big tech media. They keep telling us that something called LTE is what I’ve been waiting for. Well, excuse me, I’m not waiting, I’m using. So why is it we keep reading FUD like this in GigaOM? I think it’s pretty simple. Lots of bloggers are following the lame stream media and recycling press releases and talking points as news. Sorry to single you out Om, I really do like your blog and you’re far from  the worst offender.

Let me spell my bias out for you, and I think it’s pretty much the same as the average broadband consumer. IF an LTE based carrier  shows up with a better deal I’m a customer. But, that’s based on if and when. Today, I’m writing about what I can buy now.

I do wish we’d get past discussion of technology. It’s a no brainer that LTE has a commitment from the major cell phone operators. It’s also a fact no one really has a clear idea of what LTE will be beyond the results of preliminary lab stats. The idea behind LTE is to make an easy transition form current cell phone technology for the nickel and dime you to death cellular carriers. Wimax was never designed to do that. So far, Wimax has been deployed as a big open pipe. Try getting that from the cell phone guys. By the time LTE is expected to be available in major markets, next gen Wimax will be available and an upgrade. I see a coming 4G war not only between two technologies, but also between two business models.

Bottom line: I can promise you we’re getting no largess from either the LTE or Wimax camp. We’re based in Texas, so I’ll use a little local analogy. Today Wimax is the only horse in town, and it’s pricier than we would like and slower than we would like. At the same time, as of today, the LTE camp is all hat and no cattle. Contrary to all of the tech media propaganda, both are likely to be with us for some time to come. In fact, I doubt one will be an clear winner over the other. There’s plenty of evidence for how that could work in today’s two competing cell phone standards.

It’s extremely irresponsible to call one a clear winner over the other before both players even take the field, and we’re not going to do that.