September 30, 2008: LiveBlogging the 4G Executive Summit

A day after Sprint made good on its promise to launch XOHM by the end of September (with only a day or two to spare), operator executives and other stakeholders in the race to 4G harped on the importance of hitting targets.

"There is a famous saying [in sales]: If you aim at nothing then you will hit it every time," AT&T's Vice President of Architecture Hank Kafka quipped during his keynote this morning at the 4G Executive Summit in Chicago. "There is no question that that advice applies to wireless broadband as much as it does to sales... For the U.S. wireless market to meet the soaring demands of consumers, we have got to set targets, but targets without a plan are only wishful thinking. In general, most of our operators have similar 4G targets but the difference will be in the path to those targets."

And that path was the topic du jour. What kind of path is the one to 4G? Evolutionary or revolutionary?

"Our evolution has been from GPRS to EDGE to UMTS to HSPA and soon LTE," Kafka said. "It's clear that LTE will fit neatly... This is the great advantage of the GSM evolution: We are not starting from scratch. GSM can build from the existing technologies. It takes years for new technologies to get broad coverage nationwide."

It's also clear that AT&T does not see 4G as a revolutionary step, at least in terms of networking. The summit's chair and moderator, Yankee Group's Chief Strategy Officer Berge Ayvazian, however had a different take.

"I went to bed last night with nightmares," Ayvazian deadpanned. "I couldn't start this session without noting that the 4G revolution is coming amidst a meltdown--a global financial crisis... The failure of Congress to pass the bailout led to unprecedented 777 points and $1.2T loss... Why am I even talking about this? Bank failures, nationalizing major companies... What does this mean? What a day to launch the 4G revolution, right? It's a perfect day. In the midst of a crisis you launch a revolution."

And since 3G networks will be under constant improvement over the next few years--where can the 4G label be used and when is it relevant? If HSPA+ will be WiMAX's biggest competitor while LTE is in the works, where does 3G stop and 4G begin?

"Well, The ITU will specify which technology is and isn't 4G," Huawei USA's Wireless CTO Charlie Martin said during his keynote this morning. "But there is no doubt that 3G is converging toward LTE. When it comes to 4G the emphasis has been on bandwidth... in our WiMAX launches we have not seen mobility as a factor. Most of our WiMAX launches are for bundled services that include VoIP and basic broadband offerings. So, for Huawei it's never a very difficult decision for us [to make when a client asks us which technology they should use]. It's generally very clear to us. We don't get in many super competitive situations [when it comes to LTE vs. WiMAX deployments]. It's almost always very clear cut."

Any way you cut it, the wireless industry has a lot of acronyms to cut through, and they began that process today at the 4G Executive Summit here at WiMAX World. Stay tuned to special issues of WiMAX Trends as the week progresses with all the latest news from the show.