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WiMAX or LTE: Who will Lead the Broadband Mobile Internet?

Zakhia Abichar, J. Morris Chang and Chau-Yun Hsu
Abstract: In the last few years, there has been a growing demand in the mobile Internet
market. To enable the mobile Internet, mobility and high data rates are required. There
are two main technologies that are competing for the IMT-Advanced (International
Mobile Telecommunications) initiative, which will be known as 4G. These are the Long
Term Evolution sanctioned by the 3GPP organization and the IEEE 802.16 Standard,
known as WiMAX. This article compares WiMAX and LTE by showing technical
perspectives and comparing their development and deployment timelines. We also
overview their current status and provide an outlook on their successful adoption as 4G
technologies.
Index terms – Introductory and Survey, Emerging technologies, Cellular architecture,

Standards, Wireless communication.
Enabling the Mobile Internet
In the recent years, there has been a great demand for mobile Internet access. Figures
from the mobile web browser, Opera, show that there has been 0.5 billion pages viewed
in January 2007. This number increased to 1.8 billion pages in January 2008, 7.6 billion
pages in January 2009, and finally grew to 23 billion pages during January 2010.
However, the 3G technology that promised mobile broadband hasn’t been widely
successful due to its low rate and high service costs. It was estimated that, as of 2008, the
number of 3G subscribers is just about 7 percent of the number of 2G subscribers.
To enable the mobile Internet, the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU)

Working Party (WP) 5D has launched the IMT-Advanced initiative, seeking proposals
from communication standards organization to be recommended for 4G. To date, there
have been several proposals which are mainly based on two technologies. The first
technology is WiMAX, which is another name for the IEEE 802.16 family of standards.
The second technology is the Long Term Evolution which is developed by the 3rd
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
This article presents a comparison of WiMAX and LTE by showing the development and
support of each standard, their current status, technical perspectives on them and finally,
by pointing out issues that affect their deployment and adoption as 4G.
Standards Development and Status
The IEEE 802.16 standards are developed by the IEEE and comprise notably of IEEE
802.16-2004, the first major WiMAX standard for fixed access. This one was superseded
by the IEEE 802.16e-2005 which provides for fixed and mobile access and is known as
Mobile WiMAX. The IEEE 802.16 Working Group’s (WG) proposal for IMT-Advanced
was submitted in October 2009 and is based on the IEEE 802.16m standard, which
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provides further enhancements to IEEE 802.16e-2005 to meet the requirements of IMT-

Advanced.
The deployment of WiMAX is supported by the WiMAX Forum, which is a group of

companies that certify interoperability of WiMAX products from various vendors. The
WiMAX Forum is also involved in other activities, such as securing spectrum around the
globe for the deployment of WiMAX. The forum comprises of over 300 companies from
the computer and telecommunications industries.
The LTE standard evolves from the previous HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) cellular
standards and is developed by 3GPP. 3GPP comprises of several international
standardizations bodies from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China. The partner
in 3GPP from the US is ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions),
which has among its members leading telecom companies such as AT&T, Cisco, Verizon
and others.
The LTE standard is officially known as document 3GPP Release 8. However, LTE
Release 8 doesn’t comply fully with the requirements of IMT-Advanced. It almost
achieves full compliance and, hence, it is refereed to sometimes as 3.9G. The proposal of
3GPP for IMT-Advanced, which was submitted in September 2009 is based on LTE-
Advanced, officially called document 3GPP Release 10.
Currently, there have been hundreds of WiMAX networks commercially deployed

around the world. In the US, Clearwire has large operations with service offerings in the
cities of Chicago, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and others. On a smaller scale, Xanadoo offers
service to only a few markets in the US. On the other hand, the first commercial
deployment of LTE was launched in Stockholm, Sweden (supplied by Ericsson) and Oslo,
Norway (supplied by Huawei) in December 2009. The modems were supplied by
Samsung.
The heritage of WiMAX and LTE is shown in Figure 1. All of the standards in the figure
were developed by either 3GPP or IEEE. The EVDO (Evolution Data Optimized)
standards were developed by 3GPP2, which is an organization with a similar structure to
3GPP. EVDO were developed to target IMT-2000 (3G) and is considered a predecessor
of LTE.
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Figure 1 – Heritage of LTE and WiMAX Standards
Technical Specifications
The main technical specifications of LTE and WiMAX are shown in Table 1. For
WiMAX, the designation of release (R1.0 and R2.0) indicates the system profile as given
by the WiMAX Forum. In the certification process for equipment of various vendors, the
WiMAX Forum authors a system profile (e.g., R1.0) that selects some features from the
standard to be tested against. A subset of the features is tested in every system profile
since the standard contains a plethora of feature that might be impossible to test all at
once. Typically, later releases contain more features and mechanisms.
Most of the WiMAX Base Stations and products in the market are based on 802.16e. The
802.16m was authored for the IMT-Advanced proposal and isn’t proliferated in the
market yet.
It is worth mentioning from the specs that both LTE and WiMAX use OFDMA in the
downlink but they differ in the uplink. WiMAX continues to use OFDMA, while LTE’s
approach is more advanced by using SC-FDMA to allow terminals to save battery power.
The next section explains this approach.
The latency requirement in the specifications of WiMAX and LTE is small enough to
support real-time applications, such as voice. A voice application would tolerate a delay
that is between 50 ms and 200 ms so that the user won’t perceive a decreased quality.
Hence, a small latency is essential in these mobile broadband standards.
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The low latency is also coupled with high data rates to satisfy bandwidth-intensive
applications. Mobility is supported in both standards by allowing the person carrying the
device to travel at speeds up to 350 km/h. The high traveling speed would apply to
mobility by high-speed trains where users are connected to a 4G network.
LTE Advanced WiMAX WiMAX

LTE (3GPP R8)
(3GPP R10) 802.16e (R1.0) 802.16m (R2.0)
DL: OFDMA DL:OFDMA DL:OFDMA DL: OFDMA
Physical Layer
UL: SC-FDMA UL: SC-FDMA UL: OFDMA UL: OFDMA
Duplex Mode FDD, TDD FDD, TDD TDD FDD, TDD
217 mph 217 mph 37-74 mph 217 mph
User Mobility
(350 km/h) (350 km/h) (60-120 km/h) (350 km/h)
Aggregate
Channel 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15, 3.5, 5, 7, 8.75, 10 5, 10, 20, 40,
components of
Bandwidth 20 MHz MHz MHz
R8
DL: 46 Mbps
DL: 302 Mbps DL > 350 Mbps
(2x2)
(4x4) (4x4)
DL: 1 Gbps UL: 4 Mbps
Peak Data Rates UL: 75 Mbps UL > 200 Mbps
UL: 300 Mbps (1x2)
(2x4) (2x4)
@ 10 MHz TDD
@ 20 MHz FDD @ 20 MHz FDD
3:1
DL: 1.91 bps/Hz DL: 1.91 bps/Hz DL>2.6 bps/Hz
Spectral (2x2) DL: 30 bps/Hz (2x2) (4x2)
Efficiency UL: 0.72 bps/Hz UL: 15 bps/Hz UL: 0.84 bps/Hz UL>1.3 bps/Hz
(1x2) (1x2) (2x4)
Link layer ~ 20
Link layer < 5 Link layer < 5 Link layer < 10
ms
Latency ms ms ms
Handoff 35~50
Handoff < 50 ms Handoff < 50 ms Handoff < 30 ms
ms
80 >80 20 >30
VoIP Capacity users/sector/MHz users/sector/MHz users/sector/MHz users/sector/MHz
(FDD) (FDD) (TDD) (TDD)
Table 1 – Technical Specifications of LTE and WiMAX
Physical Layer
The 3GPP organization proposes a different approach to the physical layer in its LTE
project. It proposes an asymmetric transmission scheme for uplink (UL) and downlink
(DL). The downlink in 3GPP-LTE is based on an OFDMA transmission scheme, as in
WiMAX. This choice, which is considered power inefficient, is tolerable since in the case
of DL transmission the power amplifier is placed at the base station (e-Node-B in 3GPP
terminology). In the base-station, power is available and the extra complexity is shared
over many mobile terminals.
However, in the uplink, the transmissions start from mobile devices which are battery-
powered and constrained to be of low cost to enable mass deployment. Hence, 3GPP
specifications propose for the 3GPP-LTE UL signal a reduced PAPR (Peak-to-Average-
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Power Ratio) transmission scheme called Single-Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple-

Access (SC-FDMA). This eases the mobile terminal’s task of maintaining highly efficient
signal transmission by its power amplifier. The 3GPP-LTE UL signal achieves this
property without degradation in the system flexibility and performance, hence it also
allows for power saving.
Quality-of-Service Oriented Resource Allocation
Both WiMAX and LTE were conceived to support Quality-of-Service (QoS). With QoS,
the bandwidth is allocated to users so that their demands are satisfied. This support
enables multimedia applications such as streaming audio or video. For LTE, a QoS-based
approach is necessary and natural since it evolves from cellular standards; a voice
conversation needs to have sufficient resources allocated for it. Equally, WiMAX
supports QoS as well. Both WiMAX and LTE use a reservation-based access. This means
that the resources are reserved for a connection using the concept of frames. This is
shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 – Frames in WiMAX and LTE Standards
In WiMAX, the time is divided into frames. The duration of a WiMAX frame ranges
from 2 to 20 ms. Each frame consists of downlink and uplink portions. The downlink
traffic goes from the Base Station (BS) to a Subscriber Station (SS) or a Mobile Station
(MS). The uplink traffic goes from an MS or SS to the BS. At the start of a frame, the BS
transmits the downlink map (DL-map) and uplink map (UL-map). These maps specify
how the resources are allocated during a frame.
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Similarly in LTE, the time is divided into frames. Each frame has a duration of 10 ms and
consists of 10 subframes of 1 ms each. Besides, subframes 0 and 5 are always reserved
for downlink. This allows the BS to transmit any special information to manage the
subsequent transmissions. LTE also uses a concept called “switchpoint”; it designates
when the transmission will switch between downlink and uplink. This can happen
multiple times in a frame. For example, in Figure 3, there is a switchpoint at subframe 1.
This means that subframe 0 is downlink, subframe 1 starts with downlink, continues with
a guard period and finishes with uplink. Subframes 2, 3, and 4 continue uplink until we
reach subframe 5 which is always downlink. In the second half of the frame, subframes 5
and 6 are downlink and subframes 8 and 9 are uplink.
A closer look at the resource allocation in WiMAX and LTE reveals a hint on the traffic
type in these two technologies. LTE’s method of using switchpoints shows a more
dynamic way of allocating the traffic since we can switch from uplink to downlink
several times in a frame. This could have been inspired by the heritage of LTE coming
from cellular technology. In a cell phone conversation, there might be an equal amount of
traffic going from one end to the other. Hence, the switching between uplink and
downlink supports the traffic in both directions with a low delay. On the other hand,
WiMAX, while it is also flexible since it can allocate the traffic between uplink and
downlink in any ratio, its heritage is from the networking standards where, typically, the
downlink traffic from Internet to a computer exceeds the uplink traffic, from a computer
to the Internet. However, both WiMAX and LTE are adequate to support voice and data
traffic.
Power Saving
Power-saving mechanisms are essential in any standard that supports devices running on
batteries. This is especially true if the devices are mobile. Since WiMAX and LTE aim at
increasing the transmission rates by tenfold over their respective previous standards, there
should be power saving at many levels: in the hardware circuit and in the protocols.
A classic mechanism in battery-operated communication devices is turning off the

transceiver to save the battery when there is no data to transmit or receive. LTE
introduces the modes called DRX, short of Discontinued Reception, and DTX, short of
Discontinued Transmission. The DRX mode has a cycle of on/off for the user’s radio. In
the “on” mode, the radio is able to transmit and receive. In the “off” mode, the radio
doesn’t communicate with other equipment and therefore is able to save power. Even in
the middle of a voice conversation, the radio can be turned off during long pauses, i.e.,
when no packets are arriving or outstanding for transmission.
WiMAX has provisions for sleep mode. This feature allows a device to negotiate with the
BS periods of time when the device will have its radio off. The BS will not schedule the
user for transmission or reception when its radio is off. The WiMAX standard specifies
three Power Saving Classes. They vary from each other by the on/off cycles and other
parameters to suit the types of data being transmitted. For example, best effort traffic
such as a file download can have an elongated off period; the download will resume once
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the radio is on again. On the other hand, a real-time conversation will require the radio to
be on as soon as new traffic arrives.
In brief, both WiMAX and LTE support power saving mechanisms to make full use of
the devices’ batteries.
Security
Security mechanisms are a quite fundamental feature for wireless networks and are
provided in WiMAX and LTE.
WiMAX provides privacy so that eavesdroppers cannot read the data transmitted over the
network. WiMAX also provides authentication so that illegal users cannot use the
services of the network. In IEEE 802.16, a security sublayer is defined at the bottom of
the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer. This sublayer has two protocols. Firstly, a
Privacy and Key Management (PKM) protocol is responsible for distributing security
keys between the BS and SSs or MSs. Secondly, an encapsulation protocol is responsible
for applying encryption to the data transmitted. WiMAX also features a Multicast and
Broadcast Rekeying Algorithm (MBRA) to refresh traffic keying material to ensure
secured multicast and broadcast services.
LTE provides similar security mechanisms. Security keys are used between the mobile
devices (UE: User Equipment) and the base station to encrypt the communication. The
LTE standard presents a key derivation protocol in addition to other mechanisms such as
resetting the connection if a corruption of keys is detected.
Outlook
The main difference between WiMAX and LTE is that WiMAX benefits from its earlier
development and deployment, while LTE has the advantage of being developed by
telecom companies who get to choose which technology they will deploy. WiMAX has
already jumpstarted the mobile broadband market. According to the WiMAX Forum,
WiMAX has about 519 deployments worldwide with more than 10 million subscribers.
Also, spectrum has been allocated for WiMAX in 178 countries. When WiMAX was
picking up pace, many telecom companies were involved in WiMAX activities. However,
now that LTE’s development has picked up, some telecom companies have backed up
from WiMAX. Recently, Cisco has announced that it will discontinue offering WiMAX
Base Stations and will focus on radio-agnostic IP core solutions. A similar announcement
was also made by Alcatel-Lucent. However, the investment and offerings made by
companies such as Clearwire doesn’t have to be discontinued. It can coexist in the
broadband arena with LTE.
In mid-2010, ITU is expected to make recommendations for IMT-Advanced. This

doesn’t necessarily mean that one of WiMAX or LTE will prevail over the other;
although that might happen. ITU issues recommendations and in the past, the IMT-2000
(3G) has recommended several technologies that are independent of each other and meet
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the same goals. For example, in 2007, ITU has added OFDM as part of 3G at the request
of IEEE. Thus, traditionally, there is room for multiple standards to be included in the
recommendation of ITU. Thus, the real battle between WiMAX and LTE is how
successfully they can be deployed and used.
There might be niche applications that favor one technology over the other. For example,
WiMAX has been targeting emerging markets that have little infrastructure. A
deployment of WiMAX would be faster and more cost-effective than laying wired
infrastructure. Besides, if chipmaker Intel starts chipping computer boards with
embedded WiMAX chips, this would be a great incentive for these markets to adopt
WiMAX.
WiMAX has also developed a standard that supports Relay Stations, called IEEE 802.16j.
In this architecture, we can have a BS that is connected to the Internet. Its range can be
extended with several relays that don’t have Internet connectivity; they relay the data in
wireless to the BS and extend the range of the BS. Relays would be cheaper than a BS
and easier to install at any site since they don’t need the wired network. This
consideration could prove rewarding for WiMAX in markets that require this type of
architecture.
WiMAX, though, needs to solve the issue of providing an open standard for the interface
that connects WiMAX Base Stations to the Access Service Network (ASN) gateway
which is linked to the IP core network. This interface is called R6 and is out of scope of
the WiMAX standard which focuses on the physical and MAC layers. The WiMAX
Forum has established a Network Working Group (NWG) to develop standardized
specifications for R6. Without an open standard for R6, service providers would have to
match one brand of Base Stations with an ASN gateway, which would limit the choices
for operators or force them to use multiple ASN gateways where one would usually
suffice.
Finally, the management of the patents that are covered in LTE might play an important
role in its successful deployment. For a technology to succeed, the royalty cost incurred
by patents should be manageable; a high royalty rate is likely to doom the technology.
The limited use of 3G networks has partly been blamed on high royalty rates. For LTE,
there have been calls for patent pooling by several licensing management companies,
notably, Sisvel, Via Licensing and MPEG LA. The goal of patent pooling is to allow
several companies to use one another’s patents that pertain to a certain technology. This
setting usually allows obtaining lower royalty rates on the products. Therefore, when the
market grows, all the companies earn back from increased sales.
In conclusion, WiMAX and LTE have several similarities in their performance and
several points where they differ in their heritage, industry support and deployment model.
To sum up, the following table compares the most notable aspects of the two
technologies.
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WiMAX LTE
Current deployment More than 500 networks Only 1 network
IEEE, Computer
Telecom companies;
Support companies; waning support
international standard bodies
from telecom companies
Performance Similar data rates, mobility support, latency
Innovative SC-FDMA uplink
Special technical feature
to save battery power
Strategy of targeting
emerging markets and
Emerging markets
developing a relays
standard could pay back
Leverages wide
Benefits from the support of
deployment. Could remain a
telecom companies since it
Strong point 4G technology even if LTE
evolves from previous
gathers more support from
telecom standards
now on
3GPP continues to lead
Taking a chunk of the
Major benefit from IMT- mobile technology and
mobile market which was
Advanced proposal leading into a new era of
typically telecom territory
broadband services
Table 2 – WiMAX and LTE in Conclusion
Resources
• Opera, State of the Mobile Web, http://www.opera.com/smw

• WiMAX Forum (includes resources and information on certification),
http://www.wimaxforum.org
• 3GPP – The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (LTE specifications, white
papers), http://www.3gpp.org
• IEEE 802.16 Task Group m, http://www.ieee802.org/16/tgm
• Anristu Company, “LTE Resource Guide”, http://www.us.anritsu.com
• IEEE 802.16WG, “IEEE standard for local and metropolitan area networks
part 16: Air interface for fixed and mobile broadband wireless
access systems, Amendment 2,” IEEE 802.16e-2005, December 2005.
• D. Astely, E. Dahlman, A. Furuskar, Y. Jading, M. Lindstrom and S. Parkvall,
“LTE: The Evolution of Mobile Broadband”, IEEE Communications Magazine,
April 2009.
• J. Robson, “The LTE/SAE Trial Initiative: Taking LTE/SAE from Specification
to Rollout”, IEEE Communications Magazine, April 2009.
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• R. Irmer, H.-P. Mayer, A. Weber, V. Braun, M. Schmidt, M. Ohm, N. Ahr, A.

Zoch, C. Jandura, P. Marsch and G. Fettweis, “Multisite Field Trial for LTE and
Advanced Concepts”, IEEE Communications Magazine, February 2009.
• M. H. Ng, S-.D. Lin, J. Li and S. Tatesh, “Coexistence Studies for 3GPP LTE
with Other Mobile Systems”, IEEE Communications Magazine, April 2009.
• CT. Huang and M. Chang, “Responding to Security Issues in WiMAX Networks”,
IEEE IT Pro, September/October 2008.
• Z. Abichar, Y. Peng and M. Chang, “WiMAX: The Emergence of Wireless
Broadband”, IEEE IT Pro, July/August 2006.
Biographies
Zakhia Abichar is a Ph.D. candidate in computer engineering at Iowa State University.

His research interests are in wireless networks and mobile computing. Abichar has done
research on Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), Vehicular Wireless Networks and
Broadband Wireless Networks. He is a student member of IEEE. Contact him at
abicharz@iastate.edu.
J. Morris Chang is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa

State University. His technical interests include wireless networks, object-oriented
programming languages, and embedded computer systems. Chang has a PhD in computer
engineering from North Carolina State University. He is a senior member of IEEE.
Contact him at morris@iastate.edu.
Chau-Yun Hsu is a professor of electrical engineering and the dean of research and
development at Tatung University, Taiwan. His technical interests include broadband
wireless communication and digital signal processing. Hsu has a PhD in electrical
engineering from Tatung University. Contact him at cyhsu@ttu.edu.tw.
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This article has been accepted for publication in IT Professional but has not yet been fully edited.

Some content may change prior to final publication.

WiMAX or LTE: Who will Lead the Broadband Mobile Internet?

Index terms – Introductory and Survey, Emerging technologies, Cellular architecture,

Enabling the Mobile Internet

To enable the mobile Internet, the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU)

Standards Development and Status

provides further enhancements to IEEE 802.16e-2005 to meet the requirements of IMT-

The deployment of WiMAX is supported by the WiMAX Forum, which is a group of

Currently, there have been hundreds of WiMAX networks commercially deployed

Figure 1 – Heritage of LTE and WiMAX Standards

LTE Advanced WiMAX WiMAX

Table 1 – Technical Specifications of LTE and WiMAX

Power Ratio) transmission scheme called Single-Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple-

Quality-of-Service Oriented Resource Allocation

Figure 2 – Frames in WiMAX and LTE Standards

A classic mechanism in battery-operated communication devices is turning off the

In mid-2010, ITU is expected to make recommendations for IMT-Advanced. This

Table 2 – WiMAX and LTE in Conclusion

• Opera, State of the Mobile Web, http://www.opera.com/smw

• R. Irmer, H.-P. Mayer, A. Weber, V. Braun, M. Schmidt, M. Ohm, N. Ahr, A.

Zakhia Abichar is a Ph.D. candidate in computer engineering at Iowa State University.

J. Morris Chang is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa

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