What is WiMAX?

WiMAX is often referred to as WiFi on steroids and while this description is understandable to a certain degree, WiMAX has more differences to WiFi than it does similarities. In fact in terms of functionality, WiMAX is more closely compared to Third Generation (3G) technology, though all three services have fundamentally similar features. In my opinion WiMAX should be seen as more of an evolution of WiFi than any sort of direct competition. WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, and like WiFi it is a wireless technology used for high speed internet and network connections. It works on the same basic principle as WiFi, of connecting users to a wireless network via radio waves transmitted and received through an access point. Where it differs mostly is in its capacity to transfer larger amounts of data at once and also to cover a wider area with its signal range.

Differences and Advantages to WiFi WiMAX is what is known as a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), which basically means that it is designed to provide wireless network coverage to a metropolitan area. One WiMAX access point has a rough signal range of anything from 3 miles to 30 miles (even more depending on who you talk to). Compare that to WiFi, which is a Local Area Network (LAN) and designed to provide coverage to a local area with a range of only a few hundred meters at best. Add to that WiMAXs capability of transferring data at speeds of up to 75 Megabits per second (Mbps), as opposed to WiFis broadband speeds of around 1.5Mbps and you can start to see why there is a growing buzz in the wireless industry for WiMAX. Not only does WiMAX offer faster speeds and wider coverage than WiFi, it also offers a better quality of connection. WiFi connections are constantly competing with one another to connect to the wireless network you may have seen people in hotel lobbies or cafes moving their laptops around in peculiar ways trying to get a stronger wireless signal to connect to. WiMAX users only need to connect once to the network and they get an allocated amount of bandwidth to use that remains constant as long as the user stays connected to the network. Thats right, in regards to public wireless access that will mean no more hopping from one hotspot to the next. WiMAX is also being touted as the solution to the last mile problem in high speed internet connectivity. The last mile problem basically refers to the last mile of cable used to connect the individual user to the internet. A common analogy is to think of it as blood distribution to a large number of cells in your body through the system of veins, arteries and capillaries, each fanning out into branches of the next as it gets closer to a particular cell. So with current cable technology, as the network moves toward each individual user the costs increase due to more and more cables branching out to reach each particular household the last mile is the most expensive part of the system for suppliers, as the more cables needed the higher the costs. The last mile costs are especially significant in rural areas, where households are often a great distance away from one another and linking them together via cable can be such a time consuming and costly exercise that supply companies simply dont bother doing it. There are plenty of places throughout the United States that can still only use Dial-Up internet connections,

while others in more remote areas cannot connect to the internet at all. WiMAX is being seen as a way to fix this, with its wider signal range meaning less wires and less work in supplying high speed broadband to remote areas. WiFi is unable to help in this area due to its general low range coverage. Originally, WiMAX was created for stationary internet connection, such as home or office connection, whereas WiFi was predominately used for mobile devices such as laptops its great draw card was the ability to connect to the internet at airports, hotels, cafes, etc without the need for cables or other external hardware. Nowadays though, WiMAX is making a play for the mobile market with Mobile WiMAX and some experts say that due to its increased Quality of Service and signal range it may even do away with WiFi all together. Only time will tell on that one, as time is what it will take for manufacturers to incorporate WiMAX-capable components into their hardware. Still, with more and more companies showing interest in this technology its more a question of when, rather than if, WiMAX will be adopted outright. WiFi still has a long way to go before it becomes a household name and yet WiMAX is already closing in.

Disadvantages But its not all gravy for WiMAX. The main disadvantage being that it is yet to be fully embraced by manufacturers worldwide. Also, the list of WiMAX providers throughout the US (let alone the rest of the world) is extremely low, with only a handful of companies offering the service so far. WiMAX works at a higher frequency than WiFi and as such is able to offer higher data transfer speeds and Quality of Service. It is able to use licensed frequencies between 2GHz and 11GHz (WiFi uses 2.4GHz and 5GHz) and even unlicensed frequencies up to 66GHz (In the realm of Television signals). However this increased bandwidth does come with disadvantages. Higher frequency radio waves travel in a straight line and cannot follow the curve of the Earths surface, therefore for WiMAX to work over 5 mile distances the access points must be in the line of sight of each other. Also, the use of higher unlicensed frequencies has caught the attention of the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters, who are concerned that WiMAX will interfere with television reception in the areas it is used. Having to use line of site access points also means that elements such as weather, buildings, terrain and other obstructions that lay between each point can diminish the strength of the WiMAX signal much the way it can with cell phone and TV reception. Distance is also a factor; where the further the user is from the closest access point the weaker the signal they can pick up. Also, as WiMAX is designed to service many users with one access point, the bandwidth available is potentially shared between hundreds of users, which would further dilute the speed at which data is transferred. So while WiMAX does hold a lot of promise, it will be a while before we see WiMAX-ready hardware on our shelves, and even longer before it changes the way we transmit and receive data. __________________