Intel – one of WiMAX’s most prominent backers – is reported to regard the technology as just one of many quality high-speed mobile broadband options. “There doesn’t have to be one solution to this problem,” Intel CTO Justin Rattner told Fortune this week. “We have cable and DSL, and we don’t care how you get the bits into your house. We just know that having the bits there drives the consumption of our silicon products.” The comments follow statements last week from Intel’s head of sales and marketing, Sean Maloney, who believes that WiMAX and rival future mobile standard LTE should be unified.

WiMAX and LTE are considered to be competing standards for next-generation mobile communications. Reports this week have suggested that recent industry developments – such as Nortel and Motorola’s new focus on LTE, as well as similar support from some of the world’s largest mobile operators – may indicate that LTE is gaining steam at the expense of WiMAX. ABI Research predicts in a new study that more than 32 million subscribers will be using LTE technology by 2013.