KDDI, Japan's CDMA giant, goes LTE

With UMB officially out of the picture, carriers effectively now have only two options when choosing the faithful path to the fourth generation: LTE and WiMAX. There's no question that WiMAX is quietly gaining traction in pockets around the world, but LTE still commands the lion's share of attention -- and it's especially interesting every time a current CDMA network chooses the GSMA-backed tech. Confirming earlier rumors, Japan's KDDI is the latest to swing that way, hooking up with Hitachi and Nortel to deliver an LTE overlay that's interoperable with its current EV-DO infrastructure. Odds are they'll be offering 20-megapixel cameraphones with 1080p displays by then, too.

[Via Phone Scoop]

[egloskerry Posted Dec 4th 2008 7:17PM]

By then we in the US might be up to 7MP!

[VDubb Posted Dec 5th 2008 12:05AM]

Nobody has choosen WiMAX as a 4G cellular/voice solution to my knowledge. Sprint/Clearwire (a.k.a. Clear) have only chosen to deploy WiMAX as a mobile broadband solution in their 2.5GHz holdings, which is primarily due to the Nextel merger in which Sprint is required to have a 4G mobile broadband that reaches at least 30 million people by Summer 2009 in the 2.5GHz spectrum they acquired from the merger. They haven't announced a true 4G path for CDMA yet.

[montusama Posted Dec 5th 2008 4:39AM]

Well assuming Sprint survives long enough, it's a safe bet that they are going to go LTE, as Qualcomm has shown they have no interest in continuing their UMB technology for development.