A wireless revolution is seeping into our daily lives never before. Sooner or later we are all going to go wireless. Broadband Wireless Access has occupied a niche in the market for about a decade. The recently developed Blue tooth wireless technology is a low power, short- range technology for ?ad hoc? cable replacement and it enables people to wirelessly combine devices wherever they bring them. Due to the short-range limitations of Blue tooth, the recent emergence of Wifi has replaced it. Wifi popularly known as 802.11 is a moderate?range, moderate?speed technology based on Ethernet. It allows people to wirelessly access throughout a location. Although the technologies share a 2.4GHz band, they have potentially overlapping applications. As more and more people use Wifi, more and more people are getting frustrated with its coverage limitations. The demand for more coverage has opened a door for WiMax.
WiMAX is an IP based, wireless broadband access technology that provides performance similar to 802.11/Wi-Fi networks with the exposure and QOS (quality of service) of cellular networks. WiMAX is also an contraction meaning "Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX).
WiMAX is a wireless digital communications system, also known as IEEE 802.16, that is intended for wireless "metropolitan area networks". WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 - 10 miles (5 - 15 km) for mobile stations. In contrast, the WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).
With WiMAX, WiFi-like data rates are easily supported, but the issue of interference is lessened. WiMAX operates on both licensed and non-licensed frequencies, providing a regulated environment and viable economic model for wireless carriers.
At its heart, however, WiMAX is a standards initiative. Its purpose is to ensure that the broadband wireless radios manufactured for customer use interoperate from vendor to vendor. The primary advantages of the WiMAX standard are to enable the adoption of advanced radio features in a uniform fashion and reduce costs for all of the radios made by companies, who are part of the WiMAX Forum? - a standards body formed to ensure interoperability via testing. The more recent Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard is a similar term describing a parallel technology to WiMAX that is being developed by vendors and carriers as a counterpoint to WiMAX.
In recent years, Broadband technology has rapidly become an established, global commodity required by a high percentage of the population. The demand has risen rapidly, with a worldwide installed base of 57 million lines in 2002 rising to an estimated 80 million lines by the end of 2003. This healthy growth curve is expected to continue steadily over the next few years and reach the 200 million mark by 2006. DSL operators, who initially focused their deployments in densely-populated urban and metropolitan areas, are now challenged to provide broadband services in suburban and rural areas where new markets are quickly taking root. Governments are prioritizing broadband as a key political objective for all citizens to overcome the ?broadband gap? also known as ?digital divide?.
??????????? Wireless DSL (WDSL) offers an effective, complementary solution to wireline DSL, allowing DSL operators to provide broadband service to additional areas and populations that would otherwise find themselves outside the broadband loop. Government regulatory bodies are realizing the inherent worth in wireless technologies as a means for solving digital-divide challenges in the last mile and have accordingly initiated a deregulation process in recent years for both licensed and unlicensed bands to support this application. Recent technological advancements and the formation of a global standard and interoperability forum - WiMAX, set the stage for WDSL to take a significant role in the broadband market. Revenues from services delivered via Broadband Wireless Access have already reached $323 million and are expected to jump to $1.75 billion.
Download your Full Reports for Wimax
Advertisement