WiMax is 3G?

This seems to be a very interesting development. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has approved WiMax, a non-cellular telecommunications technology, as part of the union’s 3G standards.

The decision, made at the ITU’s Radiocommunication Sector’s (ITU-R) general meeting in Geneva , Switzerland, means operators with 3G spectrum in the 2.5 GHz bands globally can use WiMAX to build out a network. Although each country’s regulators ultimately decide, the ITU decision usually has a strong influence.

Individual governments will independently decide whether they want to adopt and follow the ITU decision. If and when this is applied in the Philippines by NTC, it could mean that existing telcos wanting to expand to WiMax will already be under existing 3G regulation. No more additional provisions or licenses.

The ITU’s approval likely won’t resolve the debate over which is the best technology to use in the 2.57 GHz -2.69 GHz spectrum bands. The GSM community has plans to use orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in its future, with a proposed standard called Long Term Evolution (LTE). The GSM Association had opposed the inclusion of WiMAX in IMT-2000.

WiMAX, although it uses OFDMA, in its current form is a TDD (time division duplex) technology that separates signals by time slots. W-CDMA is a FDD (frequency division duplex) technology that separates signals by frequency. Engineers and companies argue over which is best.

If that happens, there may be some future for WiMax in the Philippines even if most telcos have already heavily invested in cellular 3G/HSDPA/UMTS.

Who knows, maybe Sun Cellular might follow this roadmap instead.