| 
The vision of a refrigerator informing its owner that it is running out of provisions is still, thankfully, a distant one. I for one would definitely not like to be chased on that count! Same is true about many other promises made on the wireless front, around Blue Tooth, for example, in PAN (Personal Area Network), Wi-fi in LAN, and 3G/GPRS in MAN (Metro Area Network).
A recent development, however, has soothsayers out in the open again. While some are touting this development to be the next biggest thing after Internet, there are still others who are counting the billions of users that will get added on through this apparently disruptive technology. The new mantra is Wimax - Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access.
Several things sound right about Wimax. It represents global standards for wireless broadband access, much on the same lines as Cable and DSL standards. Operating in both the licensed and unlicensed frequency bands, this provides for interoperability standards between various wireless broadband product manufacturers. It promises high throughput (up to 70mbps) over long distances (typically 30km or more), supports non line of sight operation and packs in quality aware service to differentiate between the corporate and the home consumer!
Typical applications would include providing last mile access for service providers or long distance backhaul for Telco. It could be deployed in rural villages, from where cable is still many miles away, as well as in congested cities. It could be used for fixed, mobile or nomadic applications!
Like many things technical, Wimax has a number, more appropriately a series attached to it - 802.16. Different variations of this series connote different characteristics of the standard. 802.16 is a fixed wireless, line of sight application over a licensed spectrum of 10-66 GHz. Its later avatar, the 802.16a, has a lower spectrum of 2-11Ghz. (including unlicensed bands) is non line of sight, and supports much larger distances. In addition, it supports both fixed and mobile usage. A third variant, 802.16e, still under specification, would support nomadic mobility, and consequently lower data transfer rates.
The Wimax promises to give teeth to the wireless initiative and put the smile on the face of the manufacturers and service providers alike. From all indications, the multi-vendor Wimax certified interoperable products should be available in the market earliest by 2005, but we do hope that this will get speeded up. And until then, I hope I will always find time to stock up my refrigerator without it having to remind me!
Rahul Swarup
President
Sify Enterprise Solution
We
welcome your comments and suggestions.
Please e-mail us at esbmarketing@sifycorp.com
|
