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WiMax: When, Not If
Omega1045 writes "An article over at SiliconValley.com got me excited about the new WiMax Technology that over 140 companies and organizations are pushing. The article is a little low on the technical side of things, but discusses a possible 10-mile range for the wireless technology. Many see this as a nice solution for the "last mile" problem. Similar technologies have seen a lot of hype before, but with the likes of Intel, Dell, British Telecom, AT&T and bunch of the Ma Bells, I think one can be forgiven for getting a little excited. If you are still skeptical, you can download the 'Complete Guide to WiMax.'"
It is amazing what happens when the FCC de-regulates part of the spectrum.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Ten miles?!?! goodbye, boring lectures, Hello slacking off at school!
-ND
What's with the Wikipedia link? Do people not know what the word "excited" means?
How about that idea? Wouldn't that be a great competition for expensive mobile phone plans?
The reason why 802.16 WiMax and its related 802.20 mobile wireless networking has generated much interest in the USA is the very fact that it's a lot cheaper to put up tranceiver towers for WiMax than to upgrade older residence and/or business locations to accept cable or DSL broadband. Also, the USA has enough rural areas where WiMax is probably the only way rural residents can get broadband.
WiMax is actually quite fast: it is theoretically capable of up data transfer rates far above that of wired residential broadband (I think the max limit is about 45 mbps download speeds).
In short, we have too much legacy telecommunications wiring that are not well-suited for broadband, and WiMax will bypass this limitation.
Wardriving is history now.
Imagine the potentials of hacking in to systems by just sitting inside your room - welcome to Airdriving.
On the other hand, this standard will be very useful for new countries(eg: India) trying to play big in the broadband scenario, since it needs very less infrastucture(no need to laying cable's).
The WLAN cards will become cheaper once the taiwanese starts to clone.
Simply put, fail-safe encryption does not and will not exist. Due to increases in computer processing power, encryption is by definition a temporary safeguard. I can't see how any Wifi standard could claim to be hacker-proof for not only the near future, but for the next 10 years. All we can hope is that the engineers of this standard do what they can to maximize the span of time it would take an off-the-shelf computer to break your encryption with brute force. If you need something stronger, you'll need to pay more for your Wifi solution.
This may not sound like wonderful news to those countries with a comprehensive telecommunications infrastructure, such as the USA, Asia and parts of Europe, but for countries with smaller infrastructures, it's great news.
South Africa, where I live, has a 'first world' infrastructure for the majority of uses, but for broadband internet, we simply don't cut it yet. Broadband is priced at a premium, with your average 512k ADSL connection 3 times the cost of developed countries and capped at 3gig a month.
Recently, we saw the introduction of Sentech Mywireless, using technology from IPWireless - the UMTS Standard. They had some major teething problems initially, but seem to be stabalising thier operations after loosing a lot of customers due to poor service implementation (read: underestimated the demand)
Later this year, a competitor, iBurst, who are already conducting tests, will roll out thier service with an official opening in the first quarter of 2005 - they currently run the Lotto network in South Africa. They'll be using IntelliCell technology from ArrayComm.
And finally, our wonderfull national telecom company (Telkom), who still hold the monopoly despite deregulation, will be introducing WiMax technology to South Africa in 2005 in partnership with Intel.
For a country starved of broadband options for years, wireless technology has become "the holy grail" of broadband for South Africans.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Also my English teacher (read tree hugger) mentioned that you get a headache when you are in one building since it got a cell antena on top. It is noticeable.
I'd say it's far more likely that any indoor headaches would be caused by bad air quality and/or ergonomics than elecromagnetic radiation.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but there is very little scientific evidence to support your teacher's claims. That I know of anyway, feel free to prove me wrong.
.: Max Romantschuk