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WiMAX被視為是3G的殺手
(技術新聞, 2005年11月2日)
David Manners — Electronics Weekly
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WiMAX is being seen in the United States as both a potential G3-killer and as a competitor to DSL.
“All the manufacturers of wireless base stations are specifying WiMAX,” said Babak Samimi, product marketing manager for communications products at PMC-Sierra. That is in addition to supporting GSM, W-CDMA, CDMA2000, and TD-SCDMA.
At Linear Technology, James Wong, product marketing manager for RF ICs agreed with Samimi. “The equipment makers are building base stations to integrate WiMAX,” he said.
Linear is hedging its bets on whether to put more resources into 3G IC development or into WiMAX IC development, but sees WiMAX as a compelling alternative to 3G for data communications.
“It makes more sense to off-load data to WiMAX, which is lower cost than 3G,” said Wong.
The wild card in the pack is the behavior of what PMC-Sierra calls the “disruptive telephony solutions” coming from the likes of Google, E-Bay, MSN, AOL and Yahoo. “Where are the disruptive guys going? They want the same products as the revenue-generating folks,” said PMC-Sierra’s communications product marketing manager, Jon Ames.
However, although they may want the same kind of equipment, no one knows what they will do with it because no one yet understands the business model of the so-called “disruptives.”
3G deployment in the United States is in its infancy at the moment. “Verizon is taking the lead in deploying 3G. Its service started in the last three months,” said Linear’s Wong. “The main business for it is cards plugged into notebook computers.” He conceded that “3G deployment is slower than expected. It won’t replace GSM anytime soon. The operator’s target is the cost reduction of GSM.
As well as going head-to-head with 3G as a competitive technology, WiMAX is also seen by Linear as a possible broadband access technology in competition with DSL.
“The market says that DSL is winning in terms of low cost,” said Wong, “but we see WiMAX as a DSL alternative.”
Linear Technology
PMC-Sierra Inc. |
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