WiMax will be Wi-Fi's big brother, says Intel

bealtine

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/13135/comms/wimax-will-be-wi-fis-big-brother-says-intel

The introduction of WiMax this year, with a theoretical distance for high-speed broadband over 5km, will be vital in cities, towns and the countryside where DSL has been a failure.

At a demo of the WiMax platform that will be rolled out in Ireland in the coming months by Imagine, Colin MacHale, a spokesman for Intel said that WiMax – “effectively the bigger brother to Wi-Fi” – will take Ireland a step closer to universal broadband coverage.

“It is terrible to think that an individual in Dublin or in the country can’t get broadband and their neighbour can because of split lines. Even in built-up urban areas of Ireland, people can’t get access to full broadband.

“Mobile WiMax will address that,” MacHale said. “When you think about the change that Centrino brought with Wi-Fi, now Wi-Fi base stations are so prolific in public places and homes.”

MacHale said the WiMax routers that will enter the marketplace shortly will be stylish and discreet, but are capable of interacting with base stations up to 5km away. Not only that, but each router will contain a Wi-Fi radio capable of broadcasting broadband up to 120 feet around the home or business.

“Most people in the country are operating on a 1Mbps speed at the moment, even if they think they are paying for higher. When WiMax debuts it will do so at a speed of 2Mbps, but this will be increased. The idea is that the provider will be able to dynamically allocate resources to the WiMax box. For example, if you’re having your friends over for a gaming night and you want 10Mbps to your home, the provider can just turn it up.”

Last year, Clearwire and Sprint Nextel’s wireless broadband unit announced a merger to create a 4G WiMax network. Sprint will own 51pc of the firm, while a consortium including Comcast, Time Warner, Intel, Google and Bright House will invest US$3.2bn.

In Japan, Intel is investing US$43m in Japanese WiMax provider UQ Communications, which plans to cover 90pc of the county by 2012.

“WiMax will be a viable alternative because of the lack of proper broadband infrastructure, and it will deliver affordable broadband to users who until now couldn’t get it or were paying through the nose for it.

“Ireland has the highest line rental cost for telephony in the world. WiMax will get rid of the need for line rental.”

MacHale said that as well as devices that plug into laptop USB ports, the WiMax devices for the home only require a power outlet and can be taken with the user and plugged in anywhere else a WiMax network is up and running.

“If you have purchased a service from a carrier you will be able to get the same coverage in a different part of the country by just taking the device with you,” he said, gesturing at a slim device little bigger than a paperback book.

MacHale said that Intel is developing WiMax silicon for consumer products such as laptops with embedded WiMax functionality, as well as the base stations.

“We’re working through the WiMax Forum to ensure the standards are ratified and working. We are also working across the globe with carriers to get roaming agreements in place.”

In the US, WiMax operators will operate on the 2.4Ghz to 2.6Ghz frequency, while in Europe the frequency will be between 3.4Ghz and 3.8Ghz.

“WiMax in Ireland will get rolled out from July onwards. We have already been providing fixed WiMax for a few years now with some local schools and businesses near our Leixlip operations from a base station at Intel. The fixed technology already serves thousands of consumers across the country.

“We are convinced that mobile WiMax will solve the problem of DSL blackspots in any country,” McHale added.

Intel’s global head of sales Sean Maloney last week provided an update on recent WiMAX developments. “WiMAX is a global story; the technology is real, here today and has a 2-3 year advantage over other competing technologies," he remarked.

“From the very beginning, we wanted to have a global, ultra-fast, low-cost wireless internet solution that would help bridge the digital divide and last mile."

Maloney compared WiMAX to other standards-based initiatives that Intel has worked in the past such as Ethernet, USB and of course Wi-Fi.

WiMAX service providers now offer networks covering 430 million people, or POPS, globally, and are on a path to nearly double to 800 million people by end of 2010. In addition, global WiMAX network deployments are approaching 460 in more than 135 countries for fixed, portable, and mobile networks

Leading PC OEMs including Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung and Toshiba, which have delivered or plan to deliver notebook computers with embedded WiMAX. As of today, 26 models have been certified with a total of 100 planned for the beginning of 2010.

“We are very happy with the progress we have made,” said Maloney. “Even under the current economic conditions, there is an emphasis on governments worldwide to invest reconstruction efforts on broadband.”

By John Kennedy

PogMoThoin

I thought WiMax licences are allocated as 3.5Ghz licences to a provider for an area and that they only cover the surrounding 20km radius, are Imagine getting a nationwide licence?

kaimera

it's a toss up...wimax v LTE, hard to know which will take off better or if they will co-exist.

know some people that did work with the LTE stuff, see what he has to say. also have a friend that did work for intel on wimax!

oscarBravo

WiMAX operators and manufacturers really need to stop talking about mobile and concentrate on fixed (or nomadic) systems. Let the mobile people do LTE, and do real (fixed) broadband with WiMAX.

Pog, there are no nationwide 3.5 licences. Imagine bought IBB, and got all their 3.5 FWALA licences.

thebman

I don't really like WiMAX operators talking about Mobile solutions either.

I guess they are jumping on the band wagon in the hope to capture some of the market.

Can't really blame them for trying whether they are successful or not.

watty

There is ONE nation wide 3.5GHz lincence. eircom. They have used fairly poor kit and it's almost impossible to get it as a service. They have done some Fixed WiMax trials and did promise that in the Urband areas if you failed in DSL on a DSL enabled exchange you would get it. Has anyone got it?

For 3.5GHz, Wimax has little if any advantage over other gear as with outdoor aerial and high frequency the multipath that OFDM helps with doesn't exist. The real advantage would be bands in 375MHz to 1400MHz. Even there it's marginal in the countryside.

Fixed WiMax is relatively successful. Mobile Wimax has few operators (4 major sales?) and not likely to get much more. LTE is going to have the majority of the Mobile/Nomadic market.

3.4GHz to 3.8GHz is only suitable for Fixed outdoor aerials. The supplier of the Ripwave gear to Imagine already tried Mobile Wimax in Panama and saw only small improvement. The Go card is virtually useless indoors, swapping from S-CDMA (traditional ripwave) to Wimax will improve latency on loaded sectors (as CDMA degrades by nearly 50% under load) and capacity slightly. It will make no real different to coverage or even speed to most users. It won't make the Go cards work any better as 3.6GHz is too high for in building use.

Also Imagine's 3.5 FWALA is hardly National.

I suspect this is a trial to see if they can replace ripwave (the newer modems can do s-cdma or Mobile Wimax by update of SW). The biggest problem of Ripwave is not the on air protocal (though this does make it worse) but using indoor nomadic aerials instead of outdoor fixed aerials.

gary223

So will this WiiMax bring proper Broadband to the rural areas in Ireland?

Tom Young

Probably not on its own, but it might help with reduced backhaul costs.

watty

gary223 wrote: »

So will this WiiMax bring proper Broadband to the rural areas in Ireland?

No. WiMax adds no extra rural broadband.

The WISPs need more money and investment has dried up. Also the silly circles need abolished and national or regional licences. At the minute each mast site is a licence application. Comreg also is poor at monitoring who is actually deploying a licence. It has a small impact on reducing cost and increase of capacity compared with older FWALA gear.

Nor does if help with backhaul as it is mast <--> user.

Issue is not primarily which wireless technology but:
:: Investment for roll out
:: Backhaul from mast
:: Cost of using existing mast or adding one
:: Licence structure
:: Additional Spectrum (= capacity and speed)

WiMax addresses none of those real world issues. It's a mechanism for Intel and friends to sell client connection chipsets

PogMoThoin

So this is what they're calling "universal broadband coverage"? They can't connect anyone outside the 20km inner black circles.

SkepticOne

watty wrote: »

No. WiMax adds no extra rural broadband.

The WISPs need more money and investment has dried up. Also the silly circles need abolished and national or regional licences. At the minute each mast site is a licence application. Comreg also is poor at monitoring who is actually deploying a licence. It has a small impact on reducing cost and increase of capacity compared with older FWALA gear.

National licences have not worked well in Ireland. Operators tend to sit on them or only use them to the minimum extent required of the licence. I can see why operators themselves would be in favour of them but from the consumers point of view they haven't worked, unfortunately.

Regional licences are probably more suited to the Irish market, imo.

watty

That's because the Regulator hasn't enforced them.

Only once. Chorus Wireless Phone and Chorus Powernet.


However in view of the excellent but not very large WISPs are regional, I agree, the emphasis should be regional licences.



On the map there a lot of times you won't have a connection inside the black circle either. For example I think the Limerick base is not the RTE mast, but a lower mast also used by Chorus (I could be wrong). In either case, while Shannon Town is inside the black circle there is no signal due to the shape of hill at Radar /Woodcock/Cratloe.