WiMAX Wireless Technology

Rising Star Or Long-Term Loser?

Anyone who follows the development of wireless technologies (or for that matter, has been in a Starbucks recently), knows that Wi-Fi (short for Wireless Fidelity) has finally taken off. In hotels, restaurants, and airports around the country, PC users can log onto the Internet wirelessly if they have a Wi-Fi modem. Nevertheless, Wi-Fi hasn’t always been this well received. It took years of perseverance on the part of developers before it came into its own. Currently trying to gain altitude in the same way is WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). Wi-MAX uses the IEEE 802.16 standard to send voice, audio, video, and data transmissions across distances of up to 30 miles. For WiMAX developers and potential customers, the multimillion dollar question is, “Will it succeed like Wi-Fi?” The path to wireless success has been fraught with missteps and misjudgments (of time and expense involved), and numerous wireless standards have fallen by the wayside. Will WiMAX be different?

A Historical Perspective

For more than a decade, companies and governments have dreamt of a world where a single entity, such as a corporation, a university, or a city,could connect thousands of users wirelessly to a central network. At the same time, cable and telephone companies have envisioned conquering the “last mile” dilemma, industry jargon for the difficulty and expense of bringing broadband services to widely dispersed rural consumers.

Over the years companies have tossed around several technologies as the answer for these conundrums, but none have taken root. In 2001 a group of companies formed a nonprofit trade organization, WiMAX Forum, to foster development and knowledge of another potential solution: the upcoming IEEE 802.16 standard,aka WiMAX. These companies were convinced that 802.16 held the key to serving urban and rural customers in fixed environments with high-speed wireless service.

Since that time the WiMAX Forum has reinvented itself, picking up support from an industry-spanning array of heavy hitters including AT&T, Intel,Dell, and Ericsson. The group now embraces the full 802.16 specification, which can serve fixed and mobile devices. Like other wireless technologies,WiMAX products use radio waves to transmit signals from one access point to the next, and its spectrum range is impressive. Companies can use WiMAX in licensed and unlicensed frequencies between 2GHz and 11GHz, with the possibility of future support for frequencies of as much as 66GHz. The first WiMAX certified products will be available for the 2.5GHz, 3.5GHz, and 5.8GHz bands.

802.16: A Combination For Success?

Already, companies in Australia,Russia, South Africa, Spain, and other global locations are developing WiMAX networks. In the United States, WiMAX champion Intel has conducted several successful trials of the technology, including one at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and another over a 500-squaremile area during the 2005 Interop Las Vegas. Service provider TowerStream already has hundreds of WiMAX customers online in New York City and other major urban areas.

In June Canterbury, United Kingdom, became one of the first cities to run WiMAX trials with the goal of deploying the technology countywide. Launched in collaboration with wireless network provider Telabria and the University of Kent, the Canterbury project aims to provide businesses (and potentially citizens) with wireless Internet-based telephone service, videoconferencing, and Internet access. On the other side of the globe, the island nation of Singapore plans to have countrywide WiMAX coverage by June 2006.

Flies In The Ointment

To hear its proponents speak, WiMAX is the great panacea that will solve all the world’s broadband ills. However, the technology faces a number of hurdles before it will become a mainstream solution.802.16 is actually a family of standards that includes 802.16d (recently renamed 802.16-2004) for fixed wireless hardware and 802.16e for fixed and mobile devices. Currenlty, companies are developing and achieving certification only for products that comply with 802.16-2004. Products for 802.16e are expected in 2006, but they will not automatically be compatible with 802.16d. Users will need to perofm an upgrade to enjoy fixed and mobile WiMAX. To speed the adoption process, many companies are moving forward with proprietary WiMAX kits that are not yet certified for the initial 802.16-2004 specification.This decision lets them build a WiMAX infrastructure more quickly but will necessitate more migration later. Additionally, despite its technical superiority to Wi-Fi (transmission speeds of 75Mbps vs. 11Mbps; coverage of approximately 30 miles vs. 300 feet to 1,000 feet), WiMAX holds the disadvantage of being the latecomer at a very wellattended wireless party. Historically, companies and individuals resist spending money to deploy new solutions when they already have workable ones in place.

A WiMAX Future?

Even as proponents and critics argue over WiMAX’s future, most agree it holds impressive potential. “If only half of its backers’ bullish claims about performance and equipment pricing hold up in the real world, WiMAX will be a viable option for applications such as 802.11 ‘hotspot’ backhaul and for extending broadband to areas that can’t be served by wireline DSL infrastructure,” noted wireless analyst Tim Kridel in a report he prepared for Heavy Reading. (Backhaul products transmit data at high speeds from a remote site or network to a main site. They are used to aggregate traffic from disparate end points to a central location such as a wired corporate network or the Internet.) “As WiMAX’s footprint grows and its costs drop even further, it could even begin to displace cellular and 802.11.” Kridel also predicts DSL carriers may use WiMAX to bypass licensing fees competitors charge for use of existing landlines.

These solutions may not excite consumers or the media as much as the promise of surfing the Internet at Starbucks or watching movies on mobile phones, but they generate substantial sales. The Telecommunications Industry Association’s 2005 Telecommunications Market Review And Forecast projects that WiMAX infrastructure revenue will explode from $15 million in 2004 to $115 million in 2005 and then swell to $290 million by 2008. Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts there will be 20 million fixed WiMAX installations by 2009. Like Kridel, Strategy Analytics sees WiMAX as a solution for fixed, rather than mobile, broadband. In its report Strategy Analytics’ director of RF & Wireless Component Service Chris Taylor stated, “Major concerns still remain regarding battery life for mobile WiMAX, undefined mobile specifications, and probable competition with 3G and proposed 4G networks.” In the corporate world, the attitude is also cautious. “As we work with large enterprises, we are seeing some talk of WiMAX and how it may help businesses in the future,” says Andrea Fox, CEO of Atlanta-based IT consulting firm EPIC IT. “Corporate America could benefit greatly from WiMAX. There is a need for standards, as interoperability is limited and can be costly. It’s promising and exciting, but we want to make sure the solution is solid and reliable and has a future before we consider deploying it to our corporate clients.”