Yet these "pre-WiMax" technologies also are pre-standard. That should start to change in just a few months. A number of vendors have begun the process for certification testing, and the WiMax Forum, a standards group, is expected to start certifying equipment before year's end. That will get WiMax on the road to standardization, interoperability, greater proliferation of base stations, and healthy competition among vendors. Market intelligence group Visant Strategies sees WiMax commanding half of the expected $3.4 billion wireless broadband market of 2010.
But for now, service is limited and works best within line of sight of a base station. TowerStream and NextWeb Inc. are among the companies offering T1 replacement or supplement in major cities, broadcasting from atop the tallest landmarks.
Global Reach
Meanwhile, vendors such as Clearwire LLC offer competitively priced pre-WiMax service for individuals and busi- nesses in small metropolitan areas, such as Midland, Texas, and Eau Claire, Wis., where there are pockets that wired broadband isn't serving It's the second-biggest market for pre-WiMax and will likely prove to be a sustainable one as WiMax begins to spread through smaller communities across the globe in the future. For example, telecom and networking vendor Alcatel recently signed an agreement for WiMax with the Indian government and envisions 50 million users of it in India within five years.
Some technical challenges remain, and a particularly important one in the United States is lack of spectrum. Providers are forced to choose between the crowded, potentially service-crunching 5.8-GHz public band and the largely unavailable, already licensed 2.3-, 2.5-, and 2.6-GHz bandwidths. This means that as WiMax becomes more prevalent in the next few years, the barriers to entry for carriers could be high.
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Mimeo's receiver is in line of sight of the base station at the Empire State Building. |
But TowerStream CEO Philip Urso is optimistic that many of the issues will resolve themselves over time. He predicts that the desire to cooperate will prevail among WiMax providers, enabling customers to switch networks based on where they roam. "We're hoping that there will be aggregators in the middle that will allow networks to shake hands with each other," he says. Companies like Boingo Wireless Inc. already do this in the Wi-Fi space, connecting customers to numerous Wi-Fi networks.
Verizon is demoing crowd analytics technology that uses 5G along with AI and mobile edge computing to give stadium operators insights into the flow of fans throughout a venue.
As we move closer to fully realizing the potential of Wi-Fi 7, it becomes evident that the RF, signaling, and throughput tests are not merely procedural checkpoints but the pillars of excellence in wireless communication.
With low earth orbit (LEO) satellites fast becoming the norm and 3GPP unifying telecom standards around the globe, the satellite IoT and machine-to-machine (M2M) sector ought to be looking at a bright horizon. But is this the case?
