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The Future of Wireless Connectivity
Unimonomous writes "CoolTechZone.com analyzes the future of wireless connectivity with WiMax standard. "WiMax is an upgrade from Wi-Fi and offers brilliant advantages over its predecessor. The obvious one being extended range (up to 15 miles), which means that establishing a few towers would pretty much make the entire city connected. Now this probably won't matter to those of us with 24/7 connectivity, but people living in rural and undeveloped areas would surely benefit from it." Update looks like the site buckled. Sorry.
Is if my current ISP makes purchase a new antenna/modem. I shelled out $400 for the one I'm currently using so the thought of having a new equipment bill doesn't excite me much.
That said, it would be nice if I can get higher bandwidth for the same price. When they did an equipment upgrade at their network tower, I received twice the bandwidth for the same price (still a bit pricey at $65/month).
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Some folk in our area can't get anything as they are too remote for lines, to hily for towers and those same hills and trees block sattelite access.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
and they all relate to regulations. The FCC has, so far, taken a hands off approach to regulation of data services, both wireless and wired. This approach is having an effect of establishing new networks, or seems to be. The problem is that all these new networks are being built by companies that plan to make money from distributing digital content... and we ALL know how sticky that problem is. For instance, music and video distribution is tightly being strangled by the *AA, and MS is trying to get in on the game too, with DRM'd content. All of these efforts are good, and believe me, WiMax is a *GOOD* thing.
The problems are content and distribution. Right now, plans are being made for IPTV and radio, and many many things that are digital in nature, all of which make life better or easier to cope with. Still, copyright and patent law will fsck it up if changes are not made now... Later is no good, the changes need to be made now....
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In the future there may be only wireless service for consumers, due to lower cost of deployment. Given a certain spectrum width, wireless has less data carrying capacity due to the need for agressive noise correction. Also, with wireless you can't increase capacity by laying a second piece of coax or fiber beside the first. In congested areas (neighbourhoods of large apartment buildings, etc), the combination of high use, high RF noise, and complex surfaces (walls, etc) could seriously tax WiMAX. Fortunately these same areas are where the cost of deployment for coax and fiber is lowest.
Will large ISPs be able to provide high-speed access at current prices if municipalities provide lower speed access for free? I get the sense that many ISPs will decide that they can't make any money providing access to a limited number of customers who want truely high-speed access everyone will be stuck using the "free" service provided by the government. How much insentive will they have to keep making the service better?
"Now this probably won't matter to those of us with 24/7 connectivity, but people living in rural and undeveloped areas would surely benefit from it"
The problem is that there are not enough people in those areas to make it profitable.
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I saw another comment saying this particular site was down prior to slashdot hitting it, but still.