Wireless Internet Reviews

The Internet, despite its relative young age, has gone through many revolutions already. Two such revolutions are ubiquitous broadband, and mobile connectivity. Broadband has reached a high level of saturation already in North America, and other countries are rapidly catching up, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

At the same time, the popularity of mobile phones has led to an increase in functionality, with consumers and business users now demanding that their mobile phones become multifunction devices with Internet access. The demand for broadband, and the demand for mobility have converged.

WiMAX, based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, addresses this convergence, providing wireless broadband access “on the go” and holding the potential to usher in a new era of smartphones that extend the connected desktop to the shirt pocket.

For ordinary desktop broadband connections, WiMAX will also bring big changes—automatically connecting the desktop or notebook to the nearest WiMAX station, regardless of location.

The existence of WiMAX was in fact an inevitability. Ordinary cell phones have advanced to the state of nearly becoming smartphones, and in the case of the UMPC (Ultra-Mobile PC), a fully-functioning pocket-sized PC. Computer-savvy users of these smartphones tend to be very technically-oriented, and tend to be heavy users of broadband Internet—so when they use their smartphone to access email, the corporate intranet, or their favorite web site, they will not be satisfied with narrowband speeds.

What is it?

WiMAX, intended for metropolitan area networks, is a standard for providing broadband wireless for up to 30 miles for fixed stations, and up to ten miles for mobile stations—much more coverage than any other wireless standard. There are actually multiple variations on the standard, providing for fixed, portable, and mobile connectivity. The standard addresses the issue of interference, which is more common in mobile standards like WiFi, and also establishes a network with much better efficient use of bandwidth.

In addition to establishing an efficient system for mobile connectivity, WiMAX also may be used for providing last-mile connectivity to the home or office, eliminating the need for costly cable. With WiMAX, consumers gain the advantage of having connectivity from any location. By installing a WiMAX card in a laptop for example, users that are in a WiMAX region would be able to get access while on the road, visiting clients, or at home. WiMAX may also be used in consumer devices, including smartphones, or even in automobiles.

The versatility of WiMAX holds great potential for many areas, while at the same time posing a competitive risk to mainstream cable broadband and DSL providers. Because WiMAX can also accommodate Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a WiMAX enabled notebook or smartphone would potentially be able to provide VoIP-based telephony, bypassing the telephone companies entirely.

Embedded WiMAX services also represent a whole new category of telecommunications. Embedded WiMAX chips in digital cameras for example, could lay the groundwork for a service that would automatically upload digital photographs to a photo printing service. Embedding WiMAX into consumer devices that traditionally do not have a communications component is still a long way off in the WiMAX world, but it is nonetheless an exciting prospect that could very well revolutionize the way telecommunications is viewed.

One downside is the cost of customer equipment. Subscriber equipment for WiMAX is expected to be in the $200 to $300 range, much more than the cost of a standard cable modem. Eventually, as with all technology, widespread acceptance will drive the cost of customer equipment down, but in the meantime, this will present an obstacle for carriers. Some solutions may include carriers offering subsidies for the equipment, or manufacturers of notebooks and other WiMAX-enabled devices building in WiMAX equipment directly into the device itself.

The Asians had it First

WiMAX, and the Korean WiBRO standard, is already enjoying a high penetration rate throughout much of the Asian market. This is not because their WiMAX is more mature, in fact, they are using the same standard that is just now starting to appear in North America. However, the presence of WiMAX installations in Asia is a factor of timing. North America has a larger installed base of wired broadband already, while much of Asia still uses dial-up. Nonetheless, there is a huge demand in Asian countries for broadband, and Asian carriers are stepping up to the plate as quickly as they can.

According to research from In-Stat, the Asia-Pacific market for WiMAX will be worth $4.3 billion by 2011. And since WiMAX is available and costs less to implement, it is the best option for provisioning large regions of new customers quickly. North American carriers have the same technology available of course, but they also have a large base of installed wired broadband customers that are already under contract. Areas that are getting broadband for the first time will resort to wireless options.

Rural and Third World Connectivity

Use of WiMAX for last-mile connectivity to the home or office brings a tremendous cost advantage to carriers that would otherwise have to install, individually, cable or fiber to the home. In larger cities in North America and Europe, where the broadband infrastructure is already in place, this presents less of an immediate advantage. However, new construction of large campus environments or apartment complexes will benefit a great deal from WiMAX availability in terms of new construction costs.

Rural or isolated areas that lack broadband connectivity will also benefit. There are still regions in the United States that are too sparsely populated, or too far away from a central relay to make broadband economically feasible, but WiMAX would again solve that problem.

In third world countries, WiMAX (and other wireless alternatives, such as satellite) are already being put in place to provide Internet connectivity in places where before there was none. Already, there are significant WiMAX installations in India, Pakistan, Russia, and Taiwan, as well as throughout Southeast Asia. WiMAX, in combination with satellite technology, is already sending wireless broadband to some of the most remote regions of Vietnam. The system receives a beam from Shin Satellite’s IPSTAR satellite, and then distributes it throughout the village from a WiMAX base station.

The Major Players

Although implementations are only just now starting to appear, WiMAX is a robust standard with broad support throughout the industry. Several major equipment manufacturers and telecommunications carriers are already launching, or planning to launch, WiMAX products and services. Some installations are already in place, and with great success. In July 2008, Alvarion rolled out their first WiMAX network delivering broadband Internet to businesses and homes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Sprint Nextel has made a commitment to WiMAX (with the other three major US carriers focusing on Long Term Evolution (LTE) instead). Sprint launched their first commercial WiMAX installation in Baltimore, with pilots in several other major cities as well. Clearwire, which is majority-owned by Sprint, has as its goal building a nationwide WiMAX network.

With the creation of a nationwide WiMAX network, the technology can finally reach its full potential—allowing subscribers to access the Internet using their notebook, smartphone, UMPC or other device, any time, from any location in the country, transparently.

While other carriers are focusing instead of fourth-generation wireless networks, the Sprint-Clearwire project holds a time advantage over them, giving Sprint a big headstart in capturing business.

In June 2008, the WiMAX Forum announced availability of the first ten Mobile WiMAX products that have gained the WiMAX Forum Certified Seal of Approval for the 2.5 GHz profile. Certification of these products is highly significant in the development of WiMAX, and ensures that carriers rolling out WiMAX services will have robust and certified equipment to back up those services. The certification program eliminates any uncertainty about the viability of WiMAX as a mobile broadband option, and about its availability as a technology that is available right now.

The Future of WiMAX

There is no doubt that WiMAX is a revolutionary technology. But will it replace wired broadband completely? The answer lies in a gray area. Newer installations, where large regions have not yet had broadband in any form, are more likely to be completely wireless, but the installed base of wired broadband is quite large. Many analysts believe that while WiMAX is indeed an element of change, it will not replace wired alternatives such as FTTH (fiber to the home) because of the inherent speed advantage offered by the latter.

Nonetheless, the future for WiMAX looks rosy. Low-cost WiMAX chipsets may well give way to a whole new class of consumer devices, as well as built-in wireless broadband in notebooks, smartphones and UMPCs. Later on down the road, fourth generation technologies will supplant WiMAX eventually, but not before the technology makes its mark on the technology landscape and makes big changes in how people communicate. And while fourth generation technologies are already in the works, there is no doubt that they will ultimately have to incorporate the more successful and popular elements of WiMAX.