what stage is wimax at?

flogen

Just out of interest, what stage is the development of wiMax at? I hear intel are going to start including compatibility for it in their next gen of centrino chips or something, and I know that wiMax networks are only starting up, but as far as hardware goes, how far away are we from it becoming as standard as wifi adaptors are now?

The reason I ask is when I finally get some new hardware, I'd hate to have to go out only weeks later to get a new component for it, and if I get a laptop I'll end up with something ugly sticking out of the side of it (as I already have for my wireless lan).

Blowfish

well Irish Broadband have actually already enabled their towers for wimax, and like you said Intel will be releasing stuff for it (I'm not sure about whether it will be included in the centrino package, but i know they are releasing PCMCIA cards in Q4 this year). So it shouldn't be too long, its just down to Irish Broadband to sort out the package deals

PowerHouseDan

Well really its up to IBB to sort out themself before the packages

flogen

Any sign of other companies starting up WiMax? IBB have a pretty bad name for themselves..

Completely n00bish question, but would the introduction of wimax theoretically solve problems with IBB, such as line of sight issues and bad connections??

astrofool

theoretically yes, but given IBB's history at implementation, probs not

Doodee

and the fact that nlos hasn't been fully demonstrated.

but oversubscription of their current packages wouldn't be a problem for WiMAx since its MAC scheduling algorithm has been tested for just those types of condition.