The move from 3G to 4G wireless networks will be less an evolution and more a transformation, says Cisco System’s Kittur Nagesh.
The volume of mobile data will grow 66 times in the next five years, says Kittur Nagesh
Data will fly through the air at greater speeds and in much higher volumes, says this director of service provider marketing.
Nagesh, who spelled out Cisco’s view on the 4G migration in a recent interview, said demands for network bandwidth will skyrocket.
Over the next five years, the amount of data traveling over wireless networks will grow 66 times – or at a 120 percent annual pace, he said. About two thirds of it will be video.
As wireless carriers prepare their networks for the coming onslaught, there will be roles for both LTE and WiMAX, says Nagesh. Many people see LTE – an abbreviation of the long-term evolution technology many wireless carriers expect to use for the cellular networks – and WiMAX – a long-range successor to Wi-Fi – as competitors locked in a boxing match. “We feel that is not true,” he said. “Both have a place.”
Over time, LTE will probably be the dominant of the technologies. But it will take years for this to play out.
In the meantime, WiMAX will be strong in emerging markets and take root as well in markets in the U.S. where the necessary spectrum is plentiful.
And with tens of billions of wireless devices in use by 2013, the dual role could be a good thing. All that data will need wireless roads to follow.
Posted by Mark Boslet 
