Wimax: Part I Introduction

Hi there! I am sorry, extremely sorry. I had been crazy busy with the work I absolutely didn't get time to write. Nevertheless, as they say, better late than never. Let’s kick off and explore Wimax.

Wimax- Wireless Interoperability for Microwave Access. Purported as the last mile solution, this technology can deliver ubiquitous coverage in the range of 30 – 75 Mbps. But, before we go any further, we need to ask ourselves a simple question: why do we need Wimax? There are dearth of other wired and wireless technologies available, like: ADSL, Wifi, CDMA and GSM. So, why wimax?

If look at the statistics of wireless internet demand over the years, it should be pretty clear that, with the advent of multimedia rich mobile applications like you tube, web messenger etc, the demand for high speed internet is increasing exponentially.

Early usage of wireless internet was limited to e-mails and content browsing. But this is now changing very rapidly. We want to download music, watch videos, view content rich email attachments and do video conferencing. All these stuffs put tremendous burden on the existing wireless technologies that have very limited data rates.

But some may argue: we do have ASDL. Don’t we? Yes, we do have ADSL, but then is it possible to cover entire globe with wires? Don’t we feel liberated whenever we have a wireless substitute? The problem is more exaggerated in the case of developing countries, where the existing infrastructure is insufficient to support wired access to every one. So, in order to fill this huge gap of coverage and capacity, Wimax has been developed.

So, till I write my next blog, convince yourselves that we really need Wimax. I would be glad, if you invent some and write here based on your experience. In the next blog, I would be comparing Wimax with Wifi; An obvious comparison that comes in everybody’s mind.