802.16 WiMax Wireless Broadband on the Horizon

securitas writes "Products using the emerging IEEE 802.16 WiMax wireless broadband standard should be available early in 2005. WiMax's hundreds of megabits per second bandwidth looks promising to many vendors and service providers who met in San Jose at last week's Wireless Communications Association (WCA) International Technical Symposium & Business Expo. The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range, is expected to be complete by February, ratified in March and deployed in the first quarter of 2005." (Read on for more.)

"The IEEE 802.16e spec, which will support mobile applications, is expected to be complete by early 2005. Nextel, Sprint and BellSouth are all interested in the technology to deploy services like streaming video and TV, wireless phones, and high-speed Internet service in unserved, low-density areas near high-density ones. Mobile operators in developing countries like Brazil's NEOTEC group have already successfully tested an 802.16 wireless broadband deployment. Intel communications group executive VP and GM, Sean Maloney, is banking on it. From the article: 'We believe that WiMax can happen, and be widely deployed, and be a big deal in the next three years the same way Wi-Fi has been a big deal the last two years.' Mirrors at Network World Fusion, Techworld and PCWorld. What happens when techies start to build their own 802.16x WiMax VoIP systems?"

Comments

This is promising.

[vidarlo]

But I can't realy see how this is gonna work? Usually, higher bandwith means higher frequency. Higher frequemcy means less range, since the waves is easilier interupted by obstacles, like trees. and so on. Someone care to explain this to me?

Re:This is promising.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are all moderators composed of people who skipped physics class today?

Mod parent down, it's utterly wrong and it's clear the poster has no idea what he's talking about.

50 kilometers ? Power consumption ?

[moneymaker]

The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range, is expected to be complete by February

I wonder if it becomes actually viable ... The power consumption might reduce the actual advantages for a laptop/mobile system ?. The battery is thing still dragging mobile computing , it's still 1970's space-age technology. But maybe methanol fuel cells will come up by 2005 end ?

[http://wiki.dotgnu.org/DotGNUPeople/gopz]

Where will they find the Frequency

[eyempack]

My largest concern regarding this is the frequencies are they going to mess it up again with hair brained auctions (Cell phone's) or make it so restrictive that even my microwave will buzz my connection (802.11). I fear for how the FCC will dream up this freq. distribution.

MaBell Will Stop This

[mikewren420]

Don't worry, I doubt this technology will ever see the light of day... or if it does, it will remain cost-prohibitive for regular consumers.

Too many people have way too much to loose if this becomes the standard like 802.11 has. In any urban or suburban areas, image how many Wifi hotspots there are within 50km... or even 25km.

Cell providers and ISP's are going to fight this every step of the way because of the competition this could pose... with the right hardware. How long before we see 802.14 VoIP handsets sold on thinkgeek? ;)

How fast is it?

[xfs]

All I see anywhere is 'hundreds of megabits per second' but i haven't seen any actual numbers... anyone know?

Great potential for developing countries

[heironymouscoward]

There is no real demand for this kind of technology in countries that are already well-cabled with more fibre-optic cable than they can ever use.

We did a project once in Nigeria that depended on semi-reliable Internet connections across the country. The only option for our client was to install VSAT stations, at a cost of $50,000 each not counting operating costs.

With 50km point-to-point range it becomes very possible for operators to build a national IP network with local distribution via WiFi or cable.

This could do for Internet what the GSM has done for telephony in large parts of Africa (i.e. brought modern communications to millions of people who have never been able to get it before).

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[pesc]

There is no real demand for this kind of technology in countries that are already well-cabled with more fibre-optic cable than they can ever use.
Yes there is. The fibre-optic cable is great for the internet backbone, but you don't have fibre to every house in the suburbs and rural areas. This wireless tech would be truly excellent here!

With 50km point-to-point range it becomes very possible for operators to build a national IP network with local distribution via WiFi or cable.

Not really. While you could build a wireless backbone using this technology, the bandwidth would suck. And using this tech for the backbone and using cable for local distribution would be insane. This new tech is great for the last mile distribution of internet access. The backbone is better built by using fiber.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[heironymouscoward]

Well, despite posting on Slashdot, I've spent many months in Nigeria and while 1200 Km of expressways sounds a lot, it's not for a country that is almost a million square Km. As soon as you leave the main cities you are on secondary roads made of a thin layer of tarmac over hard earth. Cables? Where?

Microwave links are used, yes, but mainly as we might use leased lines - expensive point-to-point links between two business locations, between an ISP and a company, that kind of thing.

Microwave links do not work when it rains, however. This means they are out of action (in Nigeria's south) for a day or more per week during the rainy season. As you go north this is less of a problem. In countries like Congo it rains even more and the air is so humid microwave links are a problem.

Good communications are always a boost for a country - look at GSM networks, which in some places have multiplied people's standards of living by a factor of five or more simply because they can work around the sheer awfulness of the roads and communications infrastructure and start to do business efficiently.

Of course Africa needs better communications. The challenges are not trivial, however, nor the same as we know in the US and Europe.

WiMax in wide range of bands

[G4from128k]

The original article alludes to using WiMax in licensed bands such as 2.5 to 2.7 GHz and, while another article suggests the potential for operation in a wide range of bands from 2 to 11 GHz (and early testing in unlicensed frequencies at 5.8 GHz). This suggests that these devices will initially be available in mutually incompatible consumer versions (unlicensed spectrum) and service provider versions (licensed spectrum).

I wonder what this will do for adoption because the volume on the RF components will be fragmented across multiple bands. I also wonder if people will create WiMax variants that interfere with WiFi by operating in the same frequency space.

Re:Just boost wifi power to, oh say, 800-1400 watt

[Anonymous Coward]

The eye is the only part of the human body which does not have a natural cooling mechanism.

During WWII, radar techs in Britain would frequently step outside in front of their radars to take the chill off the foggy, rainy british weather.

Oddly enough, many are today suffering from a form of blindness much akin to hard-boiling an egg. The proteins change from clear to white... (similar to cataracts, except the whole viscous substance in the eye) Also, cataracts too is much more common.

Strange coincidence, that.

NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?

[Doc Ruby]

I work with the NYC City Council, and we're studying wireless "broadband" deployment. NYC has 20M people inside a 50Km radius - that's 8bps per person on a 155Mbps 802.16a segment. And the multipath reflections through our concrete canyons would destroy much of that bandwidth. Cranking down the power reduces the multipath, and allows our dense city to scope a segment to a smaller footprint, shared by a manageable number of people. How about attenuating the shape of the field, a la Pringles can, to merely fill the grid of Manhattan streets? External building antennae can hook the WAN signal to LANs, without wasting its power soaking through the concrete. Anyone have a field demo of this topology running? Want to talk to my committee in sunny Manhattan?

Re:NYC: you tawkin' ta ME?

[Doc Ruby]

Problem in NYC is that leakage is a 2way street. I pity the aliens visiting who see in the RF: Times Square without the refined good taste, in a vast array of "colors" from the city that invented it (cf. Nikola Tesla). All that buzz is why coax shielding is smart enough (:-) to keep RF *out* as well as *in*. Meanwhile, I'm exploring the spatial segregation by attenuation, more than the frequency segregation. Fitting a custom antenna on low-power standard 802.16a bases seems cheaper and more interoperable than custom frequency locks. Not to mention the bandwidth and noisy-channel avoidance offered by the full band for frequency hopping.