Intel says WiMAX and LTE should be combined

Vodafone's Arun Sarin was one of the first to say it. Now Intel's Sean Maloney is touting the idea.  Should competing standards WiMAX and LTE be unified into one standard?

Maloney, who is the executive vice president, general manager, sales and marketing group at Intel, says that two standards should be harmonized because they are about "80 percent" similar but that WiMAX is a couple years ahead of LTE.  He also said that customers will be confused by the competing 4G technologies. Maloney says that Intel is looking into ways to integrate the two technologies and it is technically possible for Intel to create a chip set that could be used for WiMAX and LTE.

Of course, this news comes just a day after Intel announced that it is preparing to re-enter the mobile-phone market. Intel's CEO Paul Otellini told the Financial Times that as mobile devices become more powerful and adoption of computer-like applications rises, Intel is in a position to make inroads into the mobile-phone market.

 

For more on this story:
- see this BBC article

Related stories:
Vodafone CEO: WiMAX has a home in LTE.
Intel to re-enter mobile-phone market.