The conference focused on wireless broadband technology, and on WiMax in particular. WiMax is based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards. The WiMax Forum, a group of vendors and service providers, initially will certify products based on the 802.16d standard, designed for wireless base stations with a range as long as 50 kilometers (approximately 30 miles). It is a point-to-multipoint technology, so it doesn't require a direct line of sight to the customer.
A later version of the standard, 802.16e, will provide a relatively simple upgrade to access points to support mobile customers, according to Francois Draper, vice president of sales and marketing at Wavesat, in Dorval, Quebec, and chair of memberships at the WiMax Forum. Wavesat is involved in the development of WiMax and in the broadband wireless access industry.
A single base station could transmit hundreds of megabits per second of data, but the standard doesn't define how much of that capacity a service provider should give an individual customer, Draper says. Carriers typically would offer 2 megabits per second or more to a small or medium-size business, and 300 kbps to 400 kbps to consumers, he suggests.
Intel, which plans to make WiMax chips, expects the technology to hit the market next year for stationary broadband connectivity to businesses and homes and backhaul from Wi-Fi hotspots, Maloney says. Testing has shown such a technology can support the kinds of services associated with today's DSL and cable modem services, including video, to homes and businesses in dense urban areas. Chips for WiMax products will start hitting the market this year, according to Guy Cote, director of international sales at Wavesat. The fabless semiconductor company aims to offer sample quantities of a chip in May and to ship in volume by year-end.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Wireless Broadband
Mobile Broadband is a portable wireless Internet access method that uses devices such as USB modems and mobile cards to connect to the Internet. Mobile Broadband providers use network protocols such as 3G, 3.5G, 4G, GPRS, HSDPA and WiMAX to deliver Mobile Broadband services. Stay up-to-date with Mobile Broadband plans
Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA)
Most others call it Broadband Wireless Access (BWA). Others call it Wireless Broadband.
But from the beginning, I've called it Broadband Wireless Internet Access, because I think all four words are required to explain exactly what it is I'm talking about.
Broadband - has to be fast, otherwise it doesn't do much for you. Slow Wireless Internet Access is better than nothing... OK for email, but that's about it. You simply can't do very much with slow Internet Access these days - Google's Gmail wouldn't work, for example.
Wireless - there's a lot of situations where wireless makes a huge difference in "routing around" the unavailability of wired Broadband Internet Access, the unaffordability of wired Broadband Internet Access, or just basic reliability other issues... like when your wired Broadband Internet Access provider(s) decide to charge you userious rates for (gasp!) actually using your wired Broadband Internet Access account for completely legal things like downloading High Definition (HD) movies from Netflix or iTunes.
Internet - Isenberg makes this point very well:
In the big picture, We're building interconnectedness. We're connecting every person on this planet with every other person. We're creating new ways to share experience. We're building new ways for buyers to find sellers, for manufacturers to find raw materials, for innovators to rub up against new ideas. We're creating a new means to distribute our small planet's limited resources.
Put another way, if the Broadband (whatever medium) Access isn't Internet... it doesn't matter. Isenberg doesn't make reference as to why a lot of promising vital services went down to ruin, like AOL, Compu$erve, The Source, MCI Mail, even a favorite example of mine, PC Mag Net... they were closed ecosystems that ultimately paled in comparison to the riches of information available on the Internet.
Access - In the end, it matters that you can get to it by ordinary people. In my mind, that definition excluded things like backhaul, Intranets, etc. but I've since concluded that backhaul and Intranets are valuable for ordinary people, so my definition of Access has expaned to encompass backhaul and Intranets.
But from the beginning, I've called it Broadband Wireless Internet Access, because I think all four words are required to explain exactly what it is I'm talking about.
Broadband - has to be fast, otherwise it doesn't do much for you. Slow Wireless Internet Access is better than nothing... OK for email, but that's about it. You simply can't do very much with slow Internet Access these days - Google's Gmail wouldn't work, for example.
Wireless - there's a lot of situations where wireless makes a huge difference in "routing around" the unavailability of wired Broadband Internet Access, the unaffordability of wired Broadband Internet Access, or just basic reliability other issues... like when your wired Broadband Internet Access provider(s) decide to charge you userious rates for (gasp!) actually using your wired Broadband Internet Access account for completely legal things like downloading High Definition (HD) movies from Netflix or iTunes.
Internet - Isenberg makes this point very well:
In the big picture, We're building interconnectedness. We're connecting every person on this planet with every other person. We're creating new ways to share experience. We're building new ways for buyers to find sellers, for manufacturers to find raw materials, for innovators to rub up against new ideas. We're creating a new means to distribute our small planet's limited resources.
Put another way, if the Broadband (whatever medium) Access isn't Internet... it doesn't matter. Isenberg doesn't make reference as to why a lot of promising vital services went down to ruin, like AOL, Compu$erve, The Source, MCI Mail, even a favorite example of mine, PC Mag Net... they were closed ecosystems that ultimately paled in comparison to the riches of information available on the Internet.
Access - In the end, it matters that you can get to it by ordinary people. In my mind, that definition excluded things like backhaul, Intranets, etc. but I've since concluded that backhaul and Intranets are valuable for ordinary people, so my definition of Access has expaned to encompass backhaul and Intranets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)