WiMax, a State of the Art

Miguel Angel Cordobes Aranda of the Auna (now Ono) Innovation Center gave a presentation at UPF on the results of the first WiMax trial in Spain. He knew half of the acronyms and only understood a few of the technical numbers and telco charts. However Miguel provided an overview of the current and future of WiMax from an operator’s point of view. In a few punchy lines:

• WiMax cannot compete with xDSL, HFC in terms of capacity
• WiMax will net be able to compte with mobile networks (GSM) in terms of reach
• WiMax brings more problems than solutions for fixed services (e.g. user has to be close to the window)
• The added value of WiMax is to offer mobility… and the current standard does not support it (no handover).
• WiMax is good for nomadic mobility but not complete mobility. Current technology insures connectivity up to 50-60 km/h. So no usage in trains!.
• WiMax is focused on the midium-size metropolitan area! The countryside, rural ares and big agglomerations are not of a big interest (financially).
• Apparently, particulars won’t be able to proclaim themselves providers by installing their own broadband base stations.

It is very interesting that operators view WiMax as a technology for mobility even though it clearly lack of coverage (it probably won’t ever reach GSM’s overall coverage) and lack of connectivity at average speed. All these technological and financial constraints strengths my current interest in the moving sands that mobile and ubiquitous applications and users must deal with. All wireless offers come from their technical limitations and financial constraints. Currently, no wireless technology eats the other, but rather collocate to and stack on each other with extremely poor interoperability. Each context (controlled indoor environment to uncontrolled outdoor environments) calls for its sets of technologies. Ubiquity, to its strict sense, is still far from reach.