Why WiMax will become the Future of Telecommunications
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Today we live in a world where communications have evolved into a landscape a person from 1990 would scarcely recognize. Just sixteen years ago cellular phones were owned only by the wealthy and were large enough to act as an anchor for a small boat. Many people today think it was the improvements in cell phone design that dropped rates and the cost of cell phones to the point where today even most suburban teenagers carry cell phones when just 10 years ago many middle income adults considered them a luxury or for business use only. The fact is those who think it was the phones themselves that drove the market have it backwards. It was the wireless infrastructure that drove the market to its’ current success not the devices using it.
To understand this better we need to look to New York City about 100 years ago before the modern subway system was introduced there. At the time only a few surface trains provided transportation in the NYC area and many people opposed the massive investment in a subway system paid for by in large with public money. You see in the early 1900s New York City was nothing like it is today, while it was one of the biggest cities in the US at the time that was not an enormous claim. Much of Manhattan was still vacant swamp land. The early proponents of the system however, understood that if you built the infrastructure to allow people to travel swiftly throughout a city that had the ports and the population of New York City at the time, that the city could become a massive financial powerhouse. They were right, as the infrastructure came into being the city grew to what we today know as New York City with its massive impact on the global economy.
The cellular market took a similar path though it was less obvious because you don’t see the cellular signals traveling though the air the way you can see and hear subway tracks and tunnels. Yet in the beginning cell coverage was spotty at best because there was not much of an infrastructure in place so many people saw little value in having a cell phone. As the network improved because carriers started to erect cellular towers all over the nation people began to buy and use more cellular products. Then the economy of scale gained traction and as the volume of users increased the cost per phone and for service began a drop. This trend has continued all the way up to our present day as carriers continue to offer more services for less money to compete with each other. Make no mistake though the infrastructure drove the market and caused all the associated reactions. Just as the subway was the fuel that grew NYC to more then 8 Million people who live and or work there, the cellular towers drove the market to an current estimated 779 Million Cell Phones that are sold each year.
Now there is a new technology emerging that will change the way we use technologies like Internet access, voip, local phone service and other communications methods that are not even in existence today. This technology is called WiMax and it is going to have a far bigger impact long term then we have seen from cellular phones in the past 15 years. Sound ambitious? It may indeed be but history has shown when the highway is built the traffic will follow.
First let’s answer a seemingly simple question, “what is WiMax”? The simplest definition is that WiMax is a way to transmit very high bandwidth connections across distances of over 30 miles. Think of it sort of like wireless DSL with a 30-mile range. That is a very simplified definition but it is sufficient to begin to understand how WiMax will impact the entire world over the next ten years. You see unlike that DSL connection that only goes to your house in time devices will be able to access WiMax networks just like Cell Phones access Cellular Networks today. This will mean a customer can have a high speed data connection anywhere they go (at least in areas that have coverage) to do anything from browse the web to making phone calls to downloading music and looking up information.
Some would look at this and shrug noting that similar things can be done today with existing cell phones but the issue is the speed and capacity of the connection. In the future with mobile WiMax you will be able to download not a video clip but full-length movies and television shows onto a device that will be similar to today’s cell phones. Unlike the phones of today though these devices will have hard drive capacities that will make today’s 60 Gig IPods green with tech envy. They will be able to link with tomorrow’s television sets and become the communications choice for the majority of data, voice and video applications. Imagine a phone that provides Internet access to your laptop, beams movies to your TV and gives you unlimited calling all for about what you pay for cellular service today.
A projected path way will appear something like the following
- Initial Rollouts (in progress) will begin fueled mostly by competitive local phone service carriers and rural Internet service providers along with larger carriers who will use fixed WiMax to deliver services to residential customers many of whom are in underserved markets.
- Adoption in these markets will be high because it will be the first viable option for high-speed data access for many customers in these markets.
- These deployments will generate capital to be reinvested for future deployments, which will create the initial scale of product demand. This will begin driving both the cost of carrier and customer equipment down.
- As the economy of scale makes deployment less expensive mobile platforms will begin to appear. This development will be spread between high population centers and the rural markets that already have fixed platforms deployed which will act as a springboard for mobile deployment.
- Interconnections will begin to form between rural markets and metropolitan markets as carriers form cooperative agreements to share network resources. The economy of scale will increase exponentially at this point and we will notice a marked negative impact on traditional cellular, Internet and voice services.
- Once the initial hot underserved rural markets and high-density metro areas are complete springboard deployments will quickly take WiMax coverage to the level of coverage offered by traditional wireless today.
My personal view is this process will move much faster then the deployment of cellular networks and devices for a few very key reasons.
- The manufacturing process for WiMax Devices will be quite similar to that of Wireless Devices mostly the changes will be in components and software. In 1989 no facilities existed with the capacity to produce 1,000,000 cellular handsets even if the demand was there. Today the capacity of production is sufficient to produce about 800 million devices. For these facilities to begin turning out WiMax devices will be much easier then the ramp up needed for current cell phone production.
- The concept of mobile communications and Internet access were foreign in 1989 to most people. The wireless providers had to develop a platform, a product set and the infrastructure to drive it. Then at the same time they also had to develop the market to a point where people were aware of, wanted and saw a need for their product. Today the market is in place and waiting on the technology and that difference alone should not be underestimated.
- As carriers built out wireless networks they had to learn as they built to a large degree. Think about building a network like this prior to any existing and the questions that came with it. Where do we locate the towers and how to we get permits to build them? What type of environmental interference exists? Where do we accept “dead zones” and where do we prioritize compensating for them? The list could be a mile long and today most of those questions have been answered and can now be applied to the development of a mirror network that provides WiMax access.
Look for both Fixed and Mobile WiMax deployments to become the next major growth cycle in the technology industry. Most of the other hot technologies, Video Over Internet, Voice Over Internet and others require high-speed access. In the next ten years those who control the WiMax highways will become the next giants of our industry.
Jack
Popularity: 13% [?]
Waheed Shams said,
July 6, 2006 @ 6:54 am
Long live wimax
Brett W said,
July 10, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
Agreed! As an entrepreneur in developing South Africa where our ADSL rollout is still sticky and 3G pricey how would I go about accelerating the startup of WiMAX here? Do the current fixed line/cellular co’s bring in the structure and then smaller businesses act as service providers- what is the envisaged rollout scheme and how do us smaller guys get involved? Tks.
ReadyCompanies said,
July 19, 2006 @ 5:07 am
wow !
i wish i was born today and get to enjoy all these advancements in technology
Quatre said,
July 19, 2006 @ 11:18 pm
That is what I want to know. How can i get involved in being part of those that control the wimax highway? I guess buy stock in the company or companies that will control the wimax highway.
Anything will do … » What’s is wrong now?! said,
July 20, 2006 @ 3:16 am
[…] Extracted from ComTechNews […]
Teratak irwansyah » Blog Archive » Apakah itu “Wimax” said,
July 22, 2006 @ 12:58 am
[…] Jelas dari keratan diatas Wimax merupakan dambaan warga dunia dikala teknologi ini sedang mengorak langkah menjadikan dunia tanpa batas semakin melebarkan sayapnya. Ketiadaan wayar yang berbelit-belit hakka merimaskan ditambah dengan kelajuannya yang sama atau lebih dari Streamyx tanpa disokong oleh talian telefon tetap menjadikan kehidupan cyber kita semakin effisyen. Pengeluar-2 alatan dan teknologi seperti ini semakin mantap mencari pembaharuan untuk mencapai sasaran yang lebih baik. […]
Mahmood Sarfraz said,
July 23, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
WiMax will change the trend of ADSL on copper pair and WiMax will be major bandwidht carrier in future
Mohamed Nada said,
July 31, 2006 @ 2:56 am
WiMAX is going to turn the technology standards upside down. Imagine having a device where you can use to make phone calls, surf the internet, download movies, music, and even games, and you may even watch live news or watch live matches. Life wouldn’t be more easier and fun.
Dave said,
August 24, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
Interesting topic… I’m working in this industry myself and I don’t agree about this in 100%, but I added your page to my bookmarks and hope to see more interesting articles in the future…
Mohammad from Iran said,
September 18, 2006 @ 5:49 am
I think Wimax will be the next wave in the communication world especially in fixed wireless acces, however, there are some problems in mobile access!
Good luck!
aogusdou said,
September 25, 2006 @ 6:30 am
I still do not understand why the existing mobile technologies cannot be upgraded at much lesser cost to cater to Broad Band Wireless Technology. Why a NEW technology “WiMAX” is needed at all ?
jspirko said,
September 25, 2006 @ 8:44 am
aogusdo,
Your question assumes that the only demand for WiMax is mobile technology. Of course even answered that way the reason is simple. Compare this to residential home construction with an old house that a person wants to make a lot larger and fix a lot of prolems with along with upgrading many of the apliances etc. Most of the time (not all) tearing down a house and starting from scratch of lesser cost and produces a better result then doing an addition and remodle
In much the same way trying to keep existing users of the current wireless networks happy (which means any upgrade must be “backwards compatable”) and then make older equipment work beyound its’ orginal intention and capacity may be “possible” but will in the end not work as well and cost a lot more in both money and lost subscribers due to down time over a multi year upgrade.
So that is half the answer but the larger answer lies in the fact that WiMax will have a bigger infulence on FIXED APLICATIONS during its’ initial acceptence rather then mobile applications. Through out the US and much of the developed world there are countless potential customers begging for broadband internet of any kind. They are willing to pay and ready to buy but no service is available.
The cost to deploy fiber or create remote pops (points of presence) to these areas is cost prohibitive. In other words sure the phone or cable company could roll out broadband over copper or fiber to a rural county in middle America and sure they would get 50% or more conversion to customers but the total number of customers is so small and the cost of the network deployment so expensive that it might take two decades or MORE for the provider to break even. Of course that assumes no other competitor figures out how to compete for those customers and takes away some of the market.
Contrast this with a WiMax deployment. WiMax can be transmited over 30 miles which means each tower is 30 miles of cable you don’t have to burry. In the best ground with the fewest problems cable will cost about 5 dollars a foot to burry and in many areas more like 12-15 a foot. I am about to make it worse because that price is not for the cable just to burry it.
In short you can build a LOT of towers for one mile of burried cable so it will cost a LOT LESS to deploy broadband internet to rural users via WiMax then to do so with wire line service.
Of course once said deployments begin in earnest the economy of scale takes over and WiMax gear will drop in price (this is already occuring) so the next logical conclusion is to use this new equipment for mobile metro networks to deal with the capacity and service issues that are already becoming a major issue in many areas.
I hope that helps to answer your question. Let me say it was indeed a very good question to ask,
Jack Spirko
Borko said,
October 17, 2006 @ 10:35 am
I received a call yesterday from a Telekom Serbia employee. I was suprised when he asked me if I would like to participate in a WiMAX pilot project. Offcourse my answer was YES. Then he sent me a survey to fill. So now I am a potential test user of WiMAX. All I know is that this will be a fixed wireless connection, and the employee specifically noted that I have to have 100Mbit LAN card and not the 10Mbit one. I will also get a VoIP phone. Both internet and VoIP with unlimited usage during 3 months. But, there is a catch, I will have to make a log every day with informations how the service worked, and not to tell anyone about the results of testing.
WiMAX, here I come!
James Makwanda said,
November 16, 2006 @ 7:06 am
Please can you quote me Wimax equipment. Could you price every item
We intend to only one big City (Harare)
We want one base controller,5 base stations, and all the other components I might not know. Please we are in a hurry.
Jerry Garrett said,
November 20, 2006 @ 9:56 am
Hi:
I recently noticesd that Intel, Microsoft and Dell were lobbying for the opening of more unlicenced spectrum in the white spaces between broadcasting channels. The FCC seems ready to make this available. Will this move in 2009 increase WiMax deployment and if so, how soon do you think we could see new wireless devices being used in these “white spaces”?
Wayne Rogers said,
November 27, 2006 @ 5:48 am
I’m conducting some research into WiMAX, and could do with using an opinion piece like this as a reference. I can’t use this one, however, because it contains too many typographical errors and grammatical mistakes. If this is a ‘news’ site, why can’t you at least run your article through a spell checker before you post it? Not to mention your need for a trip to English 101 (American or otherwise).
Still, thank you for your opinion on the future of WiMAX.
jspirko said,
December 5, 2006 @ 1:54 pm
Wayne,
Pardon me but excuse me apparently you don’t have any idea what being a Blogger in addition to all the other aspects of Internet Marketing is like. Quite often this stuff is emailed in from a Blackberry, etc.
The nature of a Blog is to be impartial with one person or groups unique view into a specific aspect of a niche. We also have a lot of blogs to keep updated like our Dallas Marketing Blog and others.
While there are plenty of people who can write better then me or the rest of our staff few understand the subject matter the way we do. If you are to stuck on proper English to learn from people who know what they are talking about but may lack some writing skills (or more accurately the time to worry about them) that is your cross to bare.
We write here to do two things
1. To be found by the Search Engines and we do very well at it
2. To convey what we know about technical issues in a way so that a less informed person can UNDERSTAND THEM.
In short your critique is not something we will loose sleep over, if you would like your readers to UNDERSTAND WiMax and its’ impact this article can help with that, if you or your readers are so uptight that you might tweak out because we used “then” when we should have used “than” or because we used a comma wrong, wrote a run on sentence or mispelled a word that seems more your problem then ours.
Oh and I misspelled the word misspelled above on purpose just to jack with you ;>)
Thanks for your input but jeeze dude lighten up a bit! This is just a blog run by a few Mensa members that don’t spell very well,
Anonymous said,
June 26, 2007 @ 12:42 am
WiMAX is awesome
Jacob J. Francis
Virginia Tech
Electrical Engineering Class of 2008
Aziz Hakim said,
July 16, 2008 @ 6:51 am
wow folks ! i work in a 3rd world GSM operator, my manager asked me to build a write up on why we should/not opt for wimax, i was googling things , then found this page, surprised to see all these discussions took place aaaages ago ! any of you , if you can shed some more light on this would be great. currently we have EDGE all over the country, analyzing 3G/Wimax opportunity . This is a old site i belive, if any one has any suggestion please email me at hakimaziz13@gmail.com , thanks a million !