Intel continues the WiMAX/LTE war of words

Jordan Golson — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:09:40 -0400

Earlier this week, Intel's Gregory Ofili slammed a WiMax analysis by Gartner, saying it was "devoid of reality" and hinting that Gartner was biased toward a rival wireless technology, LTE. The vitriolic post prompted me to suggest that perhaps next time Ofili should step back and count to ten before hitting publish on a corporate blog under Intel's flag.

Yesterday, Ofili apologized for the "passion" in his post, but basically said that his point still stands, and Gartner is basically full of it:

"My point, better said after the passage of time is that WiMAX is gaining significant momentum and already has a substantial planned footprint in developing and developed economies and is destined, from my view, for delivery of next generation 4G networking capability for computing and communications."

Intel has written three separate posts in as many days touting WiMAX and slamming competing next-generation wireless protocol LTE, including one post wondering if "LTE [will] become the 'red headed stepchild' for telco's."

Intel has spent billions on developing the WiMAX protocol and has staked a significant portion of its future on the platform, so it is, perhaps, unsurprising that Intel is so concerned. But you have to wonder: Why is the chip giant getting so defensive?

An examination of the telco wars is in order. Intel has an ally in WiMAX with Sprint and Clearwire. Even if Sprint is falling behind in the mobile phone wars, it is still a very big company with deep pockets. WiMAX has huge potential in rural countries with little to no infrastructure. It has already been rolled out in a number of such places, while LTE is still "vaporware" -- but perhaps all is not well in WiMAX world. An exec with an Australian company using the technology said WiMAX has "failed miserably" and is "mired in opportunistic hype."

Huh.

Maybe Intel really does have something to worry about. Last year Intel executive Sean Maloney said Intel still has "to prove [WiMAX] was worth it."

Too bad we've yet to see any proof.

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