Perhaps unsurprisingly, Leins, of cellular hardware vendor Ericsson, disagrees, being of the viewpoint that WiMax and HSPA can exist harmoniously since they each have different functions.

"Ericsson sees WiMax [the 802.16e standard] primarily as an open standard for fixed broadband wireless access, which can make up a natural part of an operator's Ethernet broadband offering," she said. "WiMax is optimized for fixed or portable 'nomadic' broadband wireless access and targets a different segment from 3G, which combines mobile telephony and mobile broadband access."

IDC's Yau used the analogy of petrol and diesel to explain the differences between WiMax and HSPA. "Your car only does one or the other," he said, "so you either drive a car or a truck.

"It's a neck-and-neck call, because I mean, at one stage, everyone wants to drive a car, but on the other hand, we definitely need trucks on the road. They each have their users."

But the comparison of HSPA and WiMax may not be so simple, he said. While the incumbent mobile carriers in Australia may be turning to HSPA on the way to their 4G platforms, carriers such as Nextel in the United States and WiBro in South Korea have chosen the WiMax route instead.