"CDMA EV-DO vs. WCDMA-HSPA vs. WiMax and the winner is..." stories

CDMA Evolution Data Optimized vs. WCDMA-HSPA vs. WiMax
All those claims and counter claims, one day passes, and you will never miss about those press release, trying to convince the operators or service providers that that's THE technology, future proof, more cost efficient in term of long-term evolution, superior performance, etc

The respective camp is wooing the potential first tier service providers like Sptint-Nextel (US nationalwide mobile WiMax infrastructure rollout plan), T-Mobile-US (US nationalwide WCDMA-HSPA infrastructure announcement) which will be not be in the picture until mid-2007, KDDI emerged as the winner in the recently launched Japan Mobile Number Portability [MNP] (CDMA2000/ EV-DO technology is the winner). The stories about The United States vs. Europe, Qualcomm vs. Intel.

In each wireless technology evolution cycle, the main concerns are the service availability (network coverage), the user device choices, and affordability. The technology superiority itself will not sell to the end-consumers. In term of service availability, it is more attractive to the end-consumers if the service is available anyway and anytime. It will be frustrating to discover that after spending much money the network coverage is only available in certains locations, and not able to use it when the consumers need it most.

Depending on where the market is, the CDMA/EV-DO against WCDMA is contrastingly different in term of gap, meanwhile mobile WiMax will only be available the earliest mid-2007.

In the States, WCDMA/HSPA is playing a catch up to CDMA/EV-DO, with Cingular rolling out aggressively the WCDMA/HSPA network against Sprint-Nextel and Verizon nationwide CDMA/EV-DO coverage. However, the gap is getting narrower. (see EV-DO vs. WCDMA: who's ahead story)

In Japan these 2 technologies dominance is pretty equal, the number of subscribers with DoCoMo network (using WCDMA/HSPA) is 30.8 millions while the number of KDDI subscriber is 24.6 millions, and at a distance third is another WCDMA/HSPA operator - SoftBank Mobile with 5.3 millions subsribers.

In Europe, needless to mention, the dominant technology is WCDMA/HSPA, while in the rest of Asia Pacific, the main networks that most operators roll out are based on WCDMA/HSPA.

From the end-consumer perspective, it does not matter which technology that provides them the pipe to access the internet. What the consumer care is service availability, affordability, and usability. They do not really care which technology is the best, the future proof. (see The Inane "Which WBIA Technology is Best " War)

Most of the time, it is the marketing people in service provider that's at fault in trying too hard to sell the technology. What matter to end-consumer most is the application - how the technology could provide a bandwidth that allow them to access internet cheaply, conviniently and faster.

cdma2000/EV-DO rev A, rev B and rev C.
wcdma/hsdpa, hsupa, hspa, lte.