Introduction
In
recent years, Broadband technology has rapidly become an established, global
commodity required by a high percentage of the population. The demand has risen
rapidly, with a worldwide installed base of 57 million lines in 2002 rising to
an estimated 80 million lines by the end of 2003. This healthy growth curve is
expected to continue steadily over the next few years and reach the 200 million
mark by 2006. DSL operators, who initially focused their deployments in
densely-populated urban and metropolitan areas, are now challenged to provide
broadband services in suburban and rural areas where new markets are quickly
taking root. Governments are prioritizing broadband as a key political
objective for all citizens to overcome the "broadband gap" also known
as "digital divide".
Abstract
WiMAX
is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless
broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. WiMAX will provide fixed
nomadic, portable and, eventually, mobile wireless broadband connectivity
without the need for direct line-of-sight with a base station. In a typical
cell radius deployment of three to ten kilometers, WiMAX Forum Certified™
systems can be expected to deliver capacity of up to 40 Mbps per channel, for
fixed and portable access applications. This is enough bandwidth to
simultaneously support hundreds of businesses with T-1 speed connectivity and
thousands of residences with DSL speed connectivity. Mobile network deployments
are expected to provide up to 15 Mbps of capacity within a typical cell radius
deployment of up to three kilometers. It is expected that WiMAX technology will
be incorporated in notebook computers and PDAs in 2006, allowing for urban
areas and cities to become “Metro Zones” for portable outdoor broadband
wireless access.
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There
are several ways to get a fast Internet connection to the middle of nowhere.
Until not too long ago, the only answer would have been "cable" -
that is, laying lines. Cable TV companies, who would be the ones to do this,
had been weighing the costs and benefits. However this would have taken years
for the investment to pay off. So while cable companies might be leading the
market for broadband access to most people (of the 41% of Americans who have
high-speed Internet access, almost two-thirds get it from their cable company),
they don't do as well to rural areas. And governments that try to require cable
companies to lay the wires find themselves battling to force the companies to
take new customers. Would DSL be a means of achieving this requisite of
broadband and bridging the digital divide?
WiMAX
WiMax
delivers broadband to a large area via towers, just like cell phones. This
enables your laptop to have high-speed access in any of the hot spots. Instead
of yet another cable coming to your home, there would be yet another antenna on
the cell-phone tower. This is definitely a point towards broadband service in
rural areas.
Wi-Fi
The
WiMAX Forum is keen to present 802.16 as complementary to the local area IEEE
standard, 802.11 or Wi-Fi. In many ways, this is right—802.16a, as we have
seen, provides a low cost way to backhaul Wi-Fi hotspots and WLAN points in
businesses and homes, and as uptake of Wi-Fi increases, the requirement for
this backhaul will grow too.
Extended Wi-Fi
Some
companies are still sticking with Wi-Fi rather than WiMAX as a metro area
wireless standard. There are various approaches to extending Wi-Fi's range and
capacity, but all are based on proprietary extensions. Their supporters take
the view that they can offer a solution now, particularly to the enterprise,
but with the speed of development of WiMAX, this argument will not hold weight
for very long.
Other
Wi-Fi extenders take the approach of fiddling with the media access control
layer rather than directing beams in a more efficient way, Vivato's approach
and that of many BWA specialists too. Some of these have got prices down to
less than initial WiMAX equipment is likely to be, around $300 per subscriber
(though WiMAX, starting around $500, is sure to drop to this level rapidly).
However, given that these are proprietary technologies from start-ups and still
have some limitations compared to WiMAX, it seems unlikely that many operators
will choose them rather than waiting 6-9 months for 802.16.
Mobile-Fi
Standards
battles are normally conducted in dusty committees and arouse little interest
among technology purchasers until the vendors move the specifications into real
products and real marketing wars. The IEEE's wireless standards are proving an
exception to this.
Conclusion
WiMAX
will become the dominant solution in China, the world's largest potential
market for broadband users. The standard has already been adopted by the
government and will fill in many of the gaps in the sketchy 3G coverage. The
hype around Wi-Fi will die down and 802.11 will return to its rightful place as
a useful but limited local area technology, fully integrated with WiMAX at the
backhaul. WiMAX will be the most significant technology to date in making
wireless access ubiquitous and, as more free spectrum is opened up, in creating
a major shake-up of the traditional shape of the wireless and mobile
communications sector.
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