Competing Technologies
Within the marketplace, WiMAX's main competition came from existing, widely deployed wireless systems such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), CDMA2000, existing Wi-Fi and mesh networking.
In the future, competition will be from the evolution of the major cellular standards to 4G, high-bandwidth, low-latency, all-IP networks with voice services built on top. The worldwide move to 4G for GSM/UMTS and AMPS/TIA (including CDMA2000) is the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) effort.
The LTE Standard was finalized in December 2008, with the first commercial deployment of LTE carried out by TeliaSonera in Oslo and Stockholm in December, 2009. Since then, LTE has seen increasing adoption by mobile carriers around the world.
In some areas of the world, the wide availability of UMTS and a general desire for standardization has meant spectrum has not been allocated for WiMAX: in July 2005, the EU-wide frequency allocation for WiMAX was blocked.
Read more about this topic: WiMAX
Famous quotes containing the word competing:
“The idealist’s programme of political or economic reform may be impracticable, absurd, demonstrably ridiculous; but it can never be successfully opposed merely by pointing out that this is the case. A negative opposition cannot be wholly effectual: there must be a competing idealism; something must be offered that is not only less objectionable but more desirable.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)