Intel has announced its WiMax products and other companies are quickly following suit. WiMax is wireless networking that offers speeds up to 70 Mbps with close to 50 kilometer range. In contrast, WiFi, the most widely used wireless networking technology, offers speeds up to 54 Mbps with ranges of 75-100 meters. WiFi range can be extended with additional antennas, quite significantly in some cases, up to several kilometers. But, these are generally directional "line of sight" antennas, meaning that any potential user will have to have a direct unobstructed view of the antenna that they are connecting through. This is of course not very practical for rural use, for instance, except maybe here in the flat midwest plains of the US ; ).
In the words of Scott Richardson, GM of Intel's broadband wireless division, "There are places on the planet that may never actually see cable and DSL." This will certainly be the case and, I think, has always been assumed would be the case. The possibilities that this opens up for developing countries are numerous. What the actual impact is and when it happens remains to be seen. I certainly hope that something does happen and that it happens soon.
Posted by thay0012 at April 20, 2005 10:23 AMwimax should do wonders for rural neighborhoods who have neither cable or dsl. they're also talking about voip and tv over wimax which would be very possible based on the speeds.
Posted by: Yung Kim at June 21, 2007 3:35 PMIt already is in some parts of Iceland and will soon be for more. A couple of companies started tests in a few rural areas in 2005-06 and now are going commercial. The sparsely populated rural areas of Iceland stand to benefit significantly by finally having access to reliable high speed connections.
Posted by: Tryggvi Thayer at June 25, 2007 11:22 AM