A New Boss in Town

With Wi-Fi dominating the localized environment restricted to homes and Hot-Spots another technology called Wimax (802.16 standard) will evolve for wide area connectivity and eventually will become a standard for wireless connectivity everywhere. Infact the Wimax will initially gain popularity by around 2006 with fixed operators and ISP’s for providing backhaul and high speed internet access. During this time the Wi-Fi hot spots and other fragmented Wi-Fi locations will also be connected using the Wimax technology. The greater range that Wimax supports around 49 Km as compared to less than 100 meters for Wi-Fi will be the stimuli for this growth. The seamless use of information while on the move without any break in signal and with good speed will further enhance the popularity of Wimax. More operators will deploy Wimax by around 2007-2008 to provide broadband wireless access to rural areas and developing countries. The cost of setting up a Wimax network will be cheaper as compared to DSL or cable options and more and more operators will be looking at incorporating Wimax technology and reduce their reliance on DSL and cable.

The increasing popularity of Wimax will also fuel the development of devices compatible with Wimax for example Laptops, Cell Phones and PDA’s by 2008-2009. This will further improve the revenues for operators who deploy Wimax network since they will be also be able to provide Voice over the Wimax network with better quality ( near to toll free voice) which was not possible earlier with Wi-Fi networks. The laptops initially will be manufactured with both Wi-Fi chips for local access and Wimax chips for wider area access. The same will be the case with Cell phones and other devices which will support both Wimax and Wi-Fi. The next growth step in Wimax will be that cellular companies will be forced to deploy Wimax networks primarily because the high speed data access that Wimax can provide with seamless connectivity for wider areas like the cellular companies and that the 3G technology will be very costly to further develop when compared with a cheaper option of Wimax; this will also be around 2009. For new cellular networks being developed Wimax will be a certain choice as the cost of setting up a Wimax network is less than that of Cellular network.

As Wimax also operates both in the licensed and the unlicensed network it will enter in smaller localized locations like homes, offices and hot-spots which were earlier dominated by Wi-Fi by using its unlicensed spectrum by around 2010. This will also spark the manufacturing of devices like cellular phones and laptops with just the Wimax chips which would be a cost advantage for both the manufacturers and the customers.

All these developments would mean that by 2010 and onwards Wimax will not only be the main source of broadband access in wider metropolitan areas but will also replace Wi-Fi networks from the homes and offices to offer a complete end to end solution for the consumers and the new boss has arrived to change the way people access information all the time anywhere, everywhere.