Ignore the hype. Although you'll benefit over the long term, the challenges facing metro Wi-Fi and Mobile WiMAX can't be underestimated. With metro Wi-Fi, motivated people are trying to adapt a contention-based WLAN protocol to the wireless WAN. It's challenging enough to design secure and scalable WLANs inside the walls of the modern enterprise, where radio propagation can be accurately modeled and interference managed. Delivering these services across a metropolitan area will be difficult at best, impossible at worst.
Although mesh technology helps, it's immature and proprietary. The AP density required just to deliver outdoor service makes build-out costs very high. Engineering systems for in-building coverage equivalent to that offered by 3G will be an immense task, and thanks to new 3G pico-cell designs, in-building cellular coverage is likely to improve in 2007. And delivering all these services over unlicensed spectrum means that private and public WLANs will collide. Yes, the 802.11 protocols allow these systems to co-exist, but not with predictable levels of performance.
Some cynics assert that proponents of metro Wi-Fi know it won't work, but by securing space on top of lampposts with the promise of cheap wireless in the short term, they'll be well positioned for a more strategic technology, such as Mobile WiMAX. In 2007, Clearwire and Sprint will begin building Mobile WiMAX networks, aided by Intel, Motorola and other partners that view the WiMAX market as a sound speculative investment. There's little doubt that WiMAX is better designed for metro data mobility than Wi-Fi, but unlike Wi-Fi, it relies for the most part on licensed spectrum. That not only increases the cost of deployment, it inhibits competition and diminishes prospects for device portability.
Viewed this way, Mobile WiMAX looks a lot like cellular, except without voice services to pay the bills!
The answer, of course, is VoIP over WiMAX, a technology that will likely become a reality--someday. Meantime, 3G developers and service providers aren't standing still. Many of the same wireless engineering breakthroughs, including OFDM and MIMO, that have fueled the Wi-Fi and WiMAX markets are finding their way into future 3G systems. Carriers are acquiring more bandwidth and incorporating new technologies that should result in performance and spectral efficiency at least as good as, if not better than, Wi-Fi and WiMAX.
The new HPE Aruba 730 series Wi-Fi 7 access points tout high performance, enhanced security, location tracking capabilities, and more.
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.
