802.16 WiMax Wireless Broadband on the Horizon

securitas writes "Products using the emerging IEEE 802.16 WiMax wireless broadband standard should be available early in 2005. WiMax's hundreds of megabits per second bandwidth looks promising to many vendors and service providers who met in San Jose at last week's Wireless Communications Association (WCA) International Technical Symposium & Business Expo. The point-to-multipoint 802.16d standard, with a 50-kilometre range, is expected to be complete by February, ratified in March and deployed in the first quarter of 2005." (Read on for more.)

"The IEEE 802.16e spec, which will support mobile applications, is expected to be complete by early 2005. Nextel, Sprint and BellSouth are all interested in the technology to deploy services like streaming video and TV, wireless phones, and high-speed Internet service in unserved, low-density areas near high-density ones. Mobile operators in developing countries like Brazil's NEOTEC group have already successfully tested an 802.16 wireless broadband deployment. Intel communications group executive VP and GM, Sean Maloney, is banking on it. From the article: 'We believe that WiMax can happen, and be widely deployed, and be a big deal in the next three years the same way Wi-Fi has been a big deal the last two years.' Mirrors at Network World Fusion, Techworld and PCWorld. What happens when techies start to build their own 802.16x WiMax VoIP systems?"

I don't think this will displace 802.11

[The One KEA]

From the sound of it, this new spec appears to deliver far too much bandwidth to really make it cost-effective for the average consumer. IMO this is best for fixed-wireless installations where installing cabling is too cost-prohibitive - especially if the range of the radio tech used in this spec is decent enough.

Re:How fast is it?

[Keitero-sama]

seeing that its still vaporware (as far as any real performance benchies are concerned) its as fast as my cable now (which is down due to the snow storm that hit NC yesterday, thank you mother nature.)

Wonderful! and Open Source enabled?

[Leon Yendor]

Given that, so far, only 802.11b is truly Open Source capable, can we hope that this one will be ?

As so many (supposedly) Open Source coders have been ready to wave their legs in the air and sign NDAs to do drivers for various supposedly OS-Oses I won't hold my breath.

Don't know which ones? If they aren't 802.11b just try to see the hardware specs they used to write the driver. The code is NOT open if you can't publish the specs.

Security(WiMax) Security(WiFi)?

[G4from128k]

I do hope that WiMax features more robust encryption than does WiFi with WEP. Something tells me that service providers are not going to be too concerned with interception of their customer's packets (only theft of bandwidth). And even if WiMax is "secure," I'm sure that it will include a nice backdoor for government counter-freedom operations.

Re:MaBell Will Stop This

[hanssprudel]

When you take off the tinfoil hat, do you have any evidence that it works like this? What great technologies, exactly, have been killed off because people had too much to loose from abondoning less efficient alternatives?

Do you mean like how AOL and Compuserv killed the Internet? How Kodak and Fuji killed the digital camera? How Sun and IBM made Linux illegal? How the dial-up ISPs made sure DSL was never invented?

There is always a comment like this in stories about new technology here, but there is absolutely nothing that points to this being the case. In fact we have a system that is flexible and rewarding of new inventions.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[Tokerat]

Have you any idea what sort of bandwidth requirements whole countries in Africa have, compared to the average US neighbourhood of a few thousand?

Have you any idea what kind of money can be saved and used for the developing economy if in 20 or 30 years time the entire Internet structure of a country doesn't need a complete replacement because they did things backwards like build backbones with WiFi?

If they're planning on developing, someday their bandwidth requirements will increase. They're either prepared, or they pay to do it again and stifle their efforts.

Re:MaBell Will Stop This

[cHiphead]

solar power; any fuel source not related to coal/oil/nuclear waste; gas efficient car engines; IBM's OS/2 Warp.

Finally

[Fjord]

People can stop trying to hack 802.11[abg] into a long range protocol. I've have potential clients ask me for long range wireless solutions and basically had to tell them that it can be done with 802.11[abg] but it's hacky, unsupported, and I can't do it (being a software guy and neither an infrastructure nor soldering guy).

Re:Finally

[djh101010]

People can stop trying to hack 802.11[abg] into a long range protocol.

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but I have a couple of questions:
1. How do you define "long range"? With a couple of directional antennas, a 1 mile 802.11b link is very solid.
2. Have you looked at the previous articles on slashdot on last-mile 802.11* solutions? One of them pointed to fab-corp.com who I have dealt with, and whose products, service, and information are top notch.

If with FAB's information you're still overwhelmed, there are lots of good resources on doing this, without having to resort to mangling floppy disks, paperclips, and pringles cans, all in ways that give you a robust, stable long range solution.

Re:Great potential for developing countries

[Timothy Brownawell]

Have you any idea what sort of bandwidth requirements whole countries in Africa have, compared to the average US neighbourhood of a few thousand?

Have you any idea what kind of money can be saved and used for the developing economy if in 20 or 30 years time the entire Internet structure of a country doesn't need a complete replacement because they did things backwards like build backbones with WiFi?

If they're planning on developing, someday their bandwidth requirements will increase. They're either prepared, or they pay to do it again and stifle their efforts.

If wireless is enough cheaper than wired, that shouldn't be a problem -- put in a cheapo temporary wireless infrastructure and only cable sections as needed, rather than cabling everywhere right away... even if they do end up installing as much cable as they would've had this could end up effectively cheaper (in %gdp terms, not absolute price) since the local economy has more time to grow before they have to buy the cable and pay for having it strung up.

Tim