« CUWIN Updates Drivers, Ports | Main | Wardriving a Zip Code and Looking at Demographics »

May 24, 2004

Trying to Understand WiMax? The Wall Street Journal Explains

By Glenn Fleishman

The Journal’s Nick Wingfield lays out the WiMax field, including the basis of its technology, its potential for rollout, and the current state of wireless broadband: Wingfield’s article is a solid portrayal of the state of the industry, including the likely date for real equipment being available in the U.S. (2006, he notes, which jibes with fellow editor Nancy Gohring’s research among WiMax-backin gcompanies), the market size, and the potential competition with cellular data and existing wireline services.

WiMax and its early relatives has the best potential in areas in which service is difficult to obtain (the prairie or Manhattan), wireline services offer limits to uploads and downloads far below a wireless broadband offering (at the edges of DSL coverage, for instance), or where wireless broadband is just plain cheaper. In some cases, early wireless broadband offers high speeds at cost that are the same or as little as half of competing wireline offerings.

I’m not bullish on WiMax’s mobile options, which are even further out in the future for deployment because by the time that standard is set, the cell companies will have had three or four years dealing with the first and probably second iterations of 3G cellular data. Meanwhile, Wi-Fi might blanket whole cities, an increasing trend. [link via Brian Chin]

Posted by Glennf at May 24, 2004 11:23 AM

Categories: WiMAX

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://db.isbn.nu/mt3/mt-tb.pl/1958

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Trying to Understand WiMax? The Wall Street Journal Explains:

» WSJ WiMAX Story from Broadband Wireless
Nick Wingfield, a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter, wrote an article on WiMAX in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal titled "Tomorrow's Wi-Fi". As with all WSJ articles, it's an interesting read. Unfortunately, Wingfield, like so many other ge... [Read More]

Tracked on May 24, 2004 2:59 PM

Comments