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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."
Here is another good article on Wimax.
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...
create a wireless power standard, and I finally throw away all external cables!
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.
No, 802.11 anything is not sufficient. Unless using specialized antennas at both ends, 802.11 would not even be adequate from the utility pole to the house in many circumstances. Anyone who has any experience with wireless ethernet knows that the range is never as good as it's hyped up to be, especially through walls and such.
I am feeling fat and sassy
*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.