Mobile communications firm Motorola has high hopes for the mobile version of WiMAX broadband, the company's technology head said in a newspaper interview.

Motorola Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior expects WiMAX mobile wireless broadband, which should be available within a year or two, to be a similar success to the established GSM technology, she told Finnish business daily Kauppalehti.

Downloading a song into a handset would take three seconds using WiMAX. The user experience is completely different to current technologies, she said.

Markets for WiMAX will open earlier than for Super-3G or 3G LTE, the extension for 3G technology, she added.

But the success of WiMAX requires strong backing from mobile and semiconductor industry players, which Motorola is pursuing, she said, adding that Motorola's Finnish based rival Nokia (NOK1V.HE) is firmly with WiMAX.

Warrior said she believes WCDMA, the third generation (3G) extension of GSM, faces problems in terms of speed and cost.

The Motorola executive also said the company would soon launch a GSM version of its Moto Q enterprise handset, which currently only supports the CDMA standard, she was quoted as telling Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat.

The paper said Warrior saw mobile phone power consumption as the hottest question for the industry at the moment.

Results for developing new fuel cells to ensure better battery life have been poor, she said, adding: It will be just as important to develop components, software and applications that consume less power.

Motorola