The current edition of Computing Magazine gives a great deal of prominence to the WiFi revolution.
Several of the UK’s largest cities are poised to go live with broad-reaching WiFi projects this month. Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and parts of London will all introduce WiFi to city centres.
London Stansted has just become the first airport to go live with wireless broadband access in its terminals and bus company, National Express is piloting WiFi on coaches from London to Cambridge.
The growth of WiFi-enabled zones in towns and cities across the country has made the UK the second most wireless nation in the world, surpassed only by the US, according to consultancy JiWire. Citizens and businesses can now use public wireless networks to link to high-speed internet services from wireless laptops and PDAs.
What is interesting is that WiFi itself could be made obsolete by the presence of WiMax processors which will have the potential to cover a much greater range than WiFi such as several kilometres. This is yet another example of how fast the technology revolution is.
WiFi is a set of product compatibility standards for wireless local area networks based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications.
Wi-Fi enables a person with a wireless-enabled computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) to connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The geographical region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. It has an effective range of 300 metres.
By contrast, WiMAX is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, a certification mark for products that pass conformity and interoperability tests for the IEEW 802.16 standards. WiMAX is a standards-based wireless technology that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances.
It looks as if WiMax is going to start rolling out by the end of the year.
As I understand it, WiMax requires seperate antennas for accessing it, and there is the ISP issue. How will ISPs charge for access to wireless networks? And will they be built by municipalities or private companies.
Those are some of the issues I haven't seen addressed yet. The technology sounds awesome, but how will it actually be deployed?
Posted by: Ed Kohler | 19 March 2006 at 07:36 PM