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WiMax Landscape Taking Shape
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."
create a wireless power standard, and I finally throw away all external cables!
It'd be pretty cool to have automatic control/readouts of things like wind/precipitation/dish aerials etc. from the weather monitors, most of which are in the middle of nowhere. With this sort of range, you can do a lot more :-)
:-)))
If the RSPB are trying to make sure no-one nicks the eggs, they just get a Tini or similar linked up to a webcam and one of these networks, and you have yourself a remote monitoring station for those rare eggs without some poor sod having to sit there for 10 weeks...
Not to mention the more normal uses, of course
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
The FCC is supposed to license on behalf of the people... not to get big money from corporations to limit the public's use. The public should be given all the bandwidth they need... not what is left over after the corporate landgrab (like the useless 2.4ghz spectrum... microwave ovens). The FCC is overstepping its duty and should be dealt with accordingly.
I want to share 74Mb/s with everyone within a 50km radius?
Sounds like a pretty crappy, easily oversold service, with crappy ping times. We already have that and it's called satellite.
Wires are the future. Wireless is for sock thumpers.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The gentlemen at Ars have a nice comment on how the industry is feeling about deployment of WiMAX as a replacement for existing broadband.
*This is not backbone technology*
802.11b is not a viable access solution
802.11b does not have enough reach or capacity to service a city. Limited bandwitdh, 11 MB/sec makes deployment in highly populated areas an un-reality. Each node can realisticly support 10 or 11 households. To support densly populated areas, hundreds of nodes would be required. In addition there is no real "roaming" available with 802.11b. The G simply ups your limited bandwidth to something higher, at the cost of range. That's not really a viable solution. Finally the limited range makes deployment in rural and suburban areas an impossibility.
The way of the future
A *SINGLE* 802.16 node would be capable of hosting about 1100 64K voice over IP channels. The same bandwitdh could be used to provide appx. 140 "broadband wireless" subscribers with 512K channels. That's pretty impressive. Stack 10 Nodes and you have 1440 broadband subscribers. Not only that, 802.16 was designed as a solution for Metropolitan Area Networks. 802.16 is simply an evolution of the 802.11 technology, scaled for carrier grade deployment, and the servicing of a large number of end users.
The real last mile solution
In rural areas, and even some city suburbs the reality of "broadband" isn't coming to fruition. The primary reason is cost. It costs too much to deploy cable systems and becuause of the distance from a central office, DSL is not feasible. Satellite isn't really all that great as on of it's "Features" is the very high latency.
A new age
802.16 will begin a new wireless age. In the coming years we will find that there is no Data and Voice usage with our cellphones, as the notion of a "Data Channel" and "Voice Channel" will go away, all calls will be just data. Instead of an 802.11b card, you will have an 802.x chip built into your laptop or handheld device, you will gain access to the same network that your phone uses and the protocol to do so will be the same. We will all have access, uniquitous access to data from any place that currently has cellphone coverage. 802.16, and it's future generations will be "The way" that data networks are accessed wirelessly.
You're not thinking big enough. I think the key word here is convergence. At really high speeds, 50 mbps for example, everything comes through the internet. Voice over ip is the first example as it requires relatively little bandwidth. Television and on demand movies are real bandwidth hogs, and will not be delivered over the internet in any meaningful fashion until bandwidth is increased greatly. When super high speed bandwidth is available, however, your telephone, radio, and tv are all going to come from the same place: the internet.
This is a very laudable goal, because democratizing the transmission medium (there will likely be lots of competition) will drive down prices on the bandwidth as well as the content. Things like customized tv packages, and niche tv offerings will take off when the internet is the transmission medium.
SURGEON GENERAL SUPPORTS NEW WIRE TECHNOLOGY
NEW YORK - Over the past century, the health of humans has been
increasingly endagered by the radiation in the evironment. Ever since
we have had networks, we have had radiation, and in ever
increasing amounts.
Since the high amount of radiation in our environment has been
identified as the primary cause of death in modern society (radiation
is the cause of all cancers and mutations which are responsible for
41% of all deaths today), more and more voices are taking up the
call to do something to reduce the amount of radiation.
One novel suggestion has been to replace the radio transmitters
connecting devices with wires-- a technology which was once
prevalent according to technology historians. "100 years ago not
all information was radiated, the way it is today" explains tech
historian Mono Rudy of the New York Museum of Technology,
"In fact large quantities of inormation was transmitted using wire
technology resulting in much lower amounts of radiation to the
consumer. One wire, or something called a fibre-optic cable,
could reduce radiation exposure by many body-burdens, especially
where large distances are concerned."
The Surgeon General has lent his support to investigating this
new/old technology, declaring that "where the health of this
nation's citizens is concerned, we must make every effort to
adapt technology to our needs."
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