WiMax In 2010 — Too Little, Too Late? 128
CWmike writes "By the end of 2010, users in more than 80 US cities may be able to ditch their cable modems, T1 setups and DSL lines — and the Wi-Fi routers that go with them — in favor of WiMax wireless technology. Wait, haven't we heard that before? WiMax has been promised 'any day now' for years, but WiMax vendors such as Clearwire Communications LLC have suffered numerous delays in rolling out services. A recent ramp-up in Clearwire deployments bodes well for WiMax, but it may not have the chance to fully get off the ground before a competing technology called Long-Term Evolution (LTE) does it in. Craig Mathias, principal analyst at Farpoint Group and a Computerworld columnist, sees WiMax taking a minority stake in the wireless broadband future. 'LTE will eventually be a combined broadband voice/data solution that can do everything that WiMax can and more,' he said. Mathias believes that LTE could get up to 80% of the global market share in future cellular installations. 'This leaves WiMax with a potential market share that cannot exceed 20% — but that's still a huge number, assuming 4 billion users around 2020 or so," he said. 'You do the math. The opportunity is nothing to sneeze at.'"
Re:This is a non issue (Score:3, Interesting)
I think this is astroturf too. I've seen it in other venues, as well. Business news, speculating about a Sprint bankruptcy. Sprint, propounding that they will back Clearwire if liquidity is a concern. It's all a lot of bullshit market manipulation, and not a Slashdot-worthy tech issue.
WiMax isn't what they've promised (Score:5, Interesting)
I own an ISP (www.kos.net) which does rural broadband, and we've been very successful at that. Sometimes performance isn't what people expect, but that's to be expected... just not by those people who want unlimited fibre to their cottage. ;)
WiMax has been shouted from mountaintop to mountaintop for the past six years. And it isn't really being deployed much. Why?
Let me tell you.
First of all, WiMax has a range of 10 miles. That's not so bad but in rural installations, it's just barely enough.
Secondly in many places, WiMax has a max emitted power of 43dbm. In others it has up to 58dbm. Either way, it's not that much power. Further, the wattage is about 15 watts for the CPE equipment and about 200 watts for the base station - but the base station cannot emit 200 watts to a single transmitter by law, so that's just a red herring unless you plan to build out a base station with multiple antennas (good idea for the first build). Many (Redline, Alvarion, Aperto) use 2.3 watts.
Third, line of sight is a major requirement for WiMax. 802.16d or 802.16e. It is possible to get some non line of sight connections at close range (2 miles) if the conditions are right, but in the end it's a high speed wave (2.3Ghz for the Clearwire + Inukshuk early adopters, 3.4-3.7Ghz for the later adopters like my company). High speed waves have a much higher chance of hitting a particle and stopping than lower speed waves. 400Mhz used for voice and cell data has a much better NLoS capability and 900Mhz radios we use for rural broadband are also quite good, especially at low power levels they are allowed. WiMax does, however, have pretty good NEAR line of sight capabilities, we're finding.
Fourth, WiMax standards aren't. Rarely will one device interoperate with another vendor's equipment. So those WiMax chips in your Intel laptop? Junk.
Fifth, performance of WiMax isn't as good as 5.8Ghz access points. That's right. WiMax uses a 5, 7 or 10Mhz channel and while 10Mhz has slightly better throughput, you're not going to see much of that because of antenna spacing and distance characteristics. It's "54Mbps" rating per base antenna ($5,000 U.S. per + antenna) works out to 23Mbps aggregate at a 50% RX/TX spacing, which means 10.5Mbps in either direction.... although some companies are talking about a 75TX/25RX percentage split in upcoming firmware. In any case, it's not a panacea, and yes that bandwidth is shared between up to 200 people per base station.
Sixth, WiMax gear is really expensive. Everything about it is expensive, from base stations to subscriber modules, to tower placement, to purchasing licenses for transmitting.
Seventh, because it's licensed and it is a high-speed wave, it's mostly useless except to rural customers. Not to mention that nobody wants 15 watts of emitted power on their crotch.
Eigth, you will need to register your transmitter with Industry Canada or the FCC in the States. Maybe both. Not only is this fairly complex to do unless you're a service provider, you may find yourself having to bid on spectrum or with the 3.65Ghz band, you may be told that another transmitter is too near to you and you'll have to coordinate with that operator.
So. That's WiMax. It's not much good to most people, it has limited abilities to provide rural service (only better than 2.4Ghz WiFi because it's got more output power and has a licensed clean channel), it's really expensive, it's not fast enough and it's got complex licensing.
Why are we using it? We are desperately in need of another frequency, since we have filled many of our 900Mhz radios and the 5.8Ghz radios are not good for rural use at all (no near or non line of sight ability). 2.4Ghz is a dirty frequency with a lot of operators and power-company "smart meters" in it (that's a stupidity of a whole other level that needs a whole other discussion). So, it's WiMax.
BTW, those thinking city-wide WiFi is cool should do a little study on why it's not workable. I
Re:Umm (Score:1, Interesting)
I didn't realize WiMax was in such a sorry state in Korea.
Here in Atlanta, we are blanketed by Clear and there is no usage cap at all. For my monthly payment, I get the home modem and a portable one I can plug into my laptop that works anywhere I go all over the city.
America is a big place.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)