"It is a very hazy battle to go through," said IDC's Yau. "We all thought 4G would be a cellular evolution, but [some carriers are] supplanting cellular technology at the Fourth Generation with mobile WiMax."

From the current state of the Australian wireless industry, the 4G technologies, to be expected in about four to five years' time, would have evolved from HSPA, Yau said.

"I don't think we'd go to be utilizing the WiMAX standard," he said, adding that when it comes down to it, it would be up to service and equipment providers to "drive the vision" towards 4G.

Howard Dahdah, Rodney Gedda and James Niccolai contributed to this story.