4G World: WiMax vendors broaden their scope to LTE

Kevin Fitchard September 17th, 2009

A few specialty WiMax vendors aren’t content with the smaller of the 4G markets and have decided to expand their horizons to long-term evolution (LTE). WiMax packet core vendor WiChorus and WiMax chipset maker Sequans Communications are two of the latest.

While WiChorus first two major contracts–with Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR) and Open Range Communications–were WiMax deals, CEO Rehan Jalil said it was always WiChorus’ intention to supply gateways for all packet data cores. It’s Smart 4G Packet Core platform is designed to be network-agnostic, acting as the access service network (ASN) gateway on the WiMax network, the gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) in the high-speed packet access (HSPA) network and the evolved packet core (EPC) in the LTE network, Jalil said. The product WiChorus announced today is intended to be a 3G packet core supporting high-capacity HSPA and HSPA+ network, but one that can be upgraded with software to become the service gateway (S-gateway) and packet data network gateway (P-gateway) of the LTE network.

Sequans, too, has been preparing to enter the LTE market for some time, but only announced the details of its development program this week. Sequans plans to develop LTE and WiMax chipsets in parallel, taking advantage of the fact that the two share much of the same basic downlink technologies, including orthogonal frequency division multiplexing access (OFDMA) schemes and multiple input-multiple output (MIMO) smart antenna techniques. Sequans has moved many of WiMax development engineers to the LTE project as well as hired new experts from the cellular industry. Sequans plans to make its first LTE chipset available for operator trials at the beginning of 2010.

http://blog.telephonyonline.com/unfiltered/2009/09/17/4g-world-wimax-vendors-broaden-their-scope-to-lte/