T-Mobile Says 4G Can Wait, Clearwire WiMax Is ‘Niche’
Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Mobile USA said it doesn’t need to rush into getting a fourth-generation mobile network, and it prefers technology known as long-term evolution, or LTE, over Clearwire Corp.’s WiMax.
“We’ll look towards LTE at the right point in time for us,” Neville Ray, T-Mobile USA’s chief network officer, said in an interview. “That ecosystem is going to be much richer than the competing one from WiMax, which is really a niche play.”
Fourth-generation networks promise average download speeds of about 10 megabits per second, compared with 1.7 megabits per second for 3G. Sprint Nextel Corp., a majority shareholder of Clearwire, uses WiMax and will compete with LTE from Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile carrier, this year and AT&T Inc. in 2011.
T-Mobile has been building out its high-speed packet access, or HSPA+, 3G network in the U.S., which delivers mobile speeds that rival 4G, Ray said today.
“We’re not waiting for the technology choice, we have the right technology to deliver that experience today,” he said.
Ray declined to say whether the mobile-phone company has had discussions with Clearwire about using available capacity on WiMax, or worldwide interoperability for microwave access, network. Clearwire, based in Kirkland, Washington, said last week it had held talks with T-Mobile, without providing details.
Clearwire has conducted trials of LTE and WiMax “continues to serve us well,” said a spokesman, Mike DiGioia, in an e-mail statement.
Ray declined to say when T-Mobile may begin offering 4G in the U.S. He said he wouldn’t rule out an agreement with Clearwire to use WiMax.
Clearwire added 16 cents, or 2 percent, to $8.09 at 4 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares have added 20 percent this year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Elstrom at pelstrom@bloomberg.net
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