RCR Wireless conference: hedge your bets on LTE iPhone
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 John Gallagher, Sr. Public Relations Manager
LTE iPhone October 2012 or June 2013? Hedge your bets.
Over the last 18 months RCR Wireless – a US news publication that has been providing wireless and mobile industry news since ’82 – been holding a series of small conferences that attract both large and small industry players who are causing disruption in the market. RCR Wireless publisher, Jeff Mucci, oversaw yesterday’s conference in San Francisco that saw extended debate on the topic of Wi-Fi and LTE and what many said in the conference was a “symbiotic relationship.”
Barbara Nelson, CTO of iPass talked about whether 4G was enough and the relationship with Wi-Fi (more on this and slides below).
With analyst Derek Kerton leading off the panel sessions, he kicked off with the fact that only 40 percent of the US market for smartphones are served today, and that there is still a large untapped 60 percent of the market not served with smartphones. This is in the single largest smartphone market currently. So while many of us may think Nokia (and perhaps RIM) may have seen its day in the sun – we should not count out future disruption in the market from such companies.
Francis Sideco, Principal Analyst of Wireless Communications at iSuppli, next gave a perspective on the handset manufacturers and noted three out of the top 10 handset manufacturers only produce smartphones. In 2012 Sideco also predicts that LTE volumes will become significant. Around the globe in various markets, consumers will be seeing more prepaid smartphones in the market and possibly see a cross-breed “smart feature” phone.
Sideco also predicts that the market is now entering a new phase that is moving beyond the app stores and more into services that will allow different business cases. However, the LTE transition has not yet gotten to that phase but there is a lot of new innovations that have to do with throughput and latency. Sideco posed the question: “What can we do with LTE that we can’t do with 3G?” What LTE allows is usability because (reduced) latency equals usability by making real time applications usable – something that doesn’t work so well with 3G.
With LTE offering faster speeds than 3G, the inevitable question is when will an LTE iPhone be available? All bets are on, said Sideco who is hedging his bets between October 2012 or June 2013 based on his prediction that the LTE chips will likely be available at that time.
However, even with the faster speeds and reduced latency, LTE is not a panacea and will need the support of other networks and as our own CTO, Barbara Nelson said in her presentation: “data demand is outstripping what people are willing to pay.”
Nelson’s presentation and panel on ‘The Evolving Mobile Network: Is 4G Enough? Or is Wi-Fi Here to Stay?’ ran for longer than expected and for once it wasn’t because someone was droning on longer during a presentation but because the questions kept flying out from the audience.
Barbara’s co-panelist, Steve Shaw from Kineto Wireless, agreed with her that Wi-Fi is the leading candidate of an alternative network for LTE. “It’s [Wi-Fi] an important part of the ecosystem… and what we’re seeing for the carriers is differentiation,” said Nelson. While Shaw added that the “vast majority of Wi-Fi use is in the home and work[place].” However, Wi-Fi is not without its challenges and Shaw sees that “extending a seamless experience by pairing Wi-Fi with LTE… will drive a lot of innovation.”
You can view Barbara’s slides here:
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