To answer this question it is important to understand the state of technical fragmentation experienced in the past by the mobile wireless and fixed broadband wireless industry. Early broadband wireless systems began as extensions of indoor local area network (LAN) technology known as Wi-Fi or the 802.11b protocol. This standard has evolved into a ubiquitous and widely available standard used in short range hotspots all over the globe. However, the media access controller (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) specifications for this protocol are suboptimum for outdoor citywide wireless networks or metropolitan area networks (MAN). Recent updates and new standards such as 802.11g, 802.11a and 802.11n have improved these elements. However, once again these technologies are configured for best performance in small venues and at short range.

It should be noted that recent developments in the ratification standard of the IEEE 802.11n protocol offer the promise of significant improvements to Wi-Fi---improvements that will blur the lines of capability between WLAN and more robust WMAN (wireless metropolitan area network) systems somewhat. There are numerous 802.11n products on the shelf and being marketed vigorously, despite that fact that the standard is not yet finalized. While 802.11n is not necessarily optimized for great range, its bandwidth capabilities are a major leap ahead from Wi-Fi. Its range improvements in the hotspot will be significant also. However, despite hopes for a final standard this specification remains mired in the competing desires of various camps and their approaches to its implementation. A number of companies, including, Belkin, D-Link, Linksys and others have nevertheless launched Pre-N or pre-certified 802.11n products. These offer solid improvement over even 802.16a/g systems; however, early testing by ZDNet has shown that the gains remain modest. Also, interoperability between the various products is problematic at best. The standard appears set to be finalized near the end of 2009 which has clearly been the biggest holdup for the technology.

To compensate for deficiencies in early Wi-Fi technology, vendors developed proprietary MAC and PHY layers based on the root LAN standard of 802.11. Many of these systems are in use today and possess significant improvements in modulation scheme, polling technology and data transport that enable effective and modestly affordably citywide or rural wireless networks. However, none of these proprietary iterations of the technology are exactly the same. No two companies' products will work with each other. This means that broadband wireless carriers must use base stations and customer premise equipment from the same vendor in any given city---which may not be the best solution in some geographic and radio frequency (RF) environments.

Some of these radio vendors were even forced to manufacture their own silicon chips to deliver technical improvements. The high costs for equipment resulting from this approach significantly slowed adoption of broadband fixed wireless versus cheaper mass market technologies such as DSL and Cable modem service.

In the mobile arena, the standards for broadband wireless delivery are less fragmented. More importantly however, the cost, speeds delivered and time to market of broadband mobile solutions have been suboptimum. But that is changing.

The promise of 3G services was slow to emerge. but that is changing with wide deployments coming from Verizon using its EVDO system as well as from Sprint and AT&T Wireless, which is widely deploying its HSDPA 3G system, mobile WiMAX systems based on newer technology such as OFDMA® offer the promise of cheaper, more effective and faster deployments of broadband mobile wireless systems. More recently 3G deployments do appear to have accelerated with a number of high-profile GSM-friendly broadband technology (called UMTS or its updated version HSDPA) have gained some traction, mostly in Europe. In the US, Sprint is in the process of rolling out a CDMA network with the newer and faster Revision-A version. Perhaps most importantly, the advent of WiMAX has greatly accelerated long-held plans by cellular carriers worldwide on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, which offers strong promise of a new generation of truly broadband capable wireless handsets and modems. And longer term there is potential, if not yet perhaps the technology political will, for a merging of WiMAX and LTE. LTE does appear about two years behind WiMAX systems.