The Competition and Cooperation of WiMAX, WLAN and 3G

WiMAX has been the hottest topic since the year 2004. Controversy on advantages and disadvantages of WiMAX, WLAN and 3G along with the emergency of WiMAX upsets masses of mobile equipment suppliers as well as telecommunication operators. IEEE standard 802.16d was released in July 2004 and 802.16e, supporting mobility, is expected to be released in the beginning of 2005. The rapid updates and progresses of 802.16 series are attracting more and more attention and bringing more controversy. This paper analyses both the competitive and cooperative relationships between WiMAX, WLAN and 3G from various aspects, such as technical standards, current status and future trend, marketing orientation, etc. The author points out in this paper that the three technologies can cooperate with each other while competing at the same time. By adopting the professional SWOT analysing method, suggestions on co-developments among WiMAX, WLAN and 3G are put forward at the end of this paper