WiMax versus LTE

There is a lot of news about 4G technologies lately.  The 2 main technologies in the US and the world at large are WiMax and LTE (long term evolution), but what does this mean for the consumer?
{NOTE:  I am a Verizon customer. Verizon's 4G technology is LTE. I don't have a 4G phone so all information is coming from third party sources.  I will cite my sources if you think I am being biased.  I will do my best to be unbiased.}  Sprint was the second company to begin planning for and building out their 4G network.  When they started, WiMax promised better upload and download speeds.  This is mostly do to the fact that there wasn't much traffic going through the WiMax servers.  MetroPCS, the first company to begin planning for and building out their 4G network, saw past this and went with LTE.  Sprint has remained with WiMax while here in the US, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T have all gone with LTE. 

For the uninitiated, those that don't know what 4G means, I have another blogpost on the subject at http://techjunkynews.blogspot.com/2011/03/3g-vs-4g.html.  In that blogpost, I talked mainly about the differences in 3G and 4G.  In this post, I will be mainly talking about LTE and WiMax. 

According to networkworld.com, WiMax has an IEEE, specification of 802.16e and is designed to support as high as 12 Mbps data-transmission speeds.  {This alone far out paces my LG Ally which gets a maximum of 3 Mbps download and only 1Mbps upload.}  LTE is based off of High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), the GSM technology that is currently used by carriers such as AT&T to deliver 3G mobile broadband.  LTE is designed to deliver 100 Mbps and give users performance comparable to today's wired broadband. {These speeds are unimaginable to me.  If you want a visuallization of the speeds, imagine my Ally is a 1990's computer hooked up to the internet via wires.  Then imagine a Alienware Area-51 ALX (my dream computer)  hooked up the internet via WiFi (802.11a,b,g,n).  Even though the 1990's computer is wired to the Internet, it still has no where near the speeds of the Area-51 ALX.}

If you think that the battle between WiMax and LTE are over with LTE the leader, you're wrong.  In November 2010, IEEE announced approved a new generation of 802.16e.  The new upgrade is classified as 802.16m and is expected to deliver average downlink speeds of more than 100 Mbps.

Meanwhile, Verizon has announced that customers can expect it current 3G footprint to be covered by 4G by the end of 2013.  At the beginning of 2014, Verizon expects to be pushing its 4G network to areas that it doesn't provide 3G access to. 

Unlike the battle of the 3G technologies, the battle of the 4G technologies seems to be rising again after 802.16m was approved.  It seems like if IEEE didn't approve 802.16, the 4G battles would be nearing its end.