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WiMAX, Boldly Going Where No Wireless Signal Has Gone Before
20 September, 2008 in Network
Despite the delay of Intel's WiMAX combo cards, WiMAX is an exciting new technology worth considering for your next upgrade. This is especially true if you live in a large metropolitan area, where WiMAX towers are most likely to be deployed first.
WiMAX is a new wireless technology, labeled 802.16 to set it apart from traditional 802.11 A/B/G/N WiFi technology. Where 802.11 technology has, at best, a range of a few-hundred yards, WiMAX networks can have a range of 6 - 31 miles, depending on the base stations used, and can be repeated to cover an unlimited area.
WiMAX networks have two primary types: Fixed and Mobile.
Fixed networks are designed more for corporate deployment, and they use high-gain directional antennas to deliver either speeds of up to 70 Mb/s or ranges of up to 31 miles, depending on which is more important for that particular network.
Mobile networks use lower-gain omni-directional antennas which can provide a range of 6 miles. If the WiMAX user can maintain "Line-of-Sight" with the Mobile antenna (e.g., if no buildings or trees come between you and the signal), these mobile antennas can deliver up to 10 Mb/s over the entire 6 miles. Since these antennas are designed for use in urban environments, however, line-of-sight is a virtual impossibility, which means that a more realistic speed expectation is 2 Mb/s.
Like traditional WiFi networks, WiMAX networks can use repeater stations to increase the effective range, and the WiMAX infrastructure is being considered as a replacement for the current 3G cellular infrastructure.
Pakistan currently has the largest fully functional WiMAX network in the world, and WiMAX prototypes have been used to help provide quick, reliable communications infrastructures during the disaster recovery efforts in Aceh, Indonesia after the tsunami in December 2004, as well as to assist the FCC and FEMA in their communications efforts during hurricane recovery eforts.