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WiMax Landscape Taking Shape

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-got-no-strings-to-hold-me-down dept.

geekee writes "A front page article in EETimes describes some of the goals, as well as some of the issues, involved in WiMax (802.16a) development. The main goal is to deliver 74Mb/s up to 50 km. One big issue is the tighter specs required when compared with WiFi. "It's a big train wreck, and much more complicated than 802.11a design, especially in terms of dynamic range, spectral range and phase noise in RF," said Colin Howlett, a senior RF engineer at VCom Inc. There are at least 4 known companies working on the RF portion and 4 known companies working on the baseband processing. These companies include Intel, Fujitsu, and Maxim. Another issue is in getting governments to agree on regulation standards for the systems, particularly in the 2.5, 3.5, and 5.8 GHz bands, Inconsistancies exist in the requirements for dynamic frequency selection and transmit power control, as well as spectrum allocation. Cost is also an important factor, since WiMax is positioning itself as an alternative to DSL and Cable, and therefore, companies must be able to offer competitve prices to gain market share."

3 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Another article by W32.Klez.A · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is another good article on Wimax.

  2. *NOT* a consumer technology.. by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    WiMax is not a replacement for WiFi, it's a backbone protocol for long-haul RF connections. It'll take place on licensed bandwidth which will be illegal to try to jam, as opposed to WiFi where there's nothing stoping your neighbor from using the same frequencies...

  3. There are so many problems with that. by qortra · · Score: 3, Informative

    First of all, This will probably not substantially increase bandwidth to target users. Though it might have a higher theoretical maximum, they simply cannot afford to offer more bandwidth than your average cable ISP already provides.

    Second of all, I don't think this will necessarily have a lower cost than existing connections. Cable and telephone infrastructure already exists necessarily because of other technologies; that means that cable and dsl providers really don't have much overhead on those technologies (beyond the bandwidth and the routers, which they would need anyway).

    Finally, I don't think we have to "hope" that Intel gets sufficient funding; I mean, feel free to donate, but they have enough funding to develop wimax or any other technology for the next millenium.

    Beyond all that, this could be a very nice innovation for one reason; Convenience.