WiMAX
From Bandipedia
WIMAX is a nickname, like "WIFI," for an emerging wireless standard produced through the efforts of vendors, service providers, and manufacturers who have joined together under the umbrella of an international forum, the "Wimax Forum." The purpose of the forum is, in its most basic sense, to gather information about, create, and evolve guidelines for an industry standard for services and equipment designed to ensure high-capacity, high-reliability data delivery. The forum has stated its intention is to "bring compliance and interoperability to the wireless broadband industry with its testing and certification program, WiMAX Forum Certified." The forum announced the first fixed wireless broadband network products to achieve the designation of WiMAX Forum Certified, on January 19, 2006, according to a press release issued on the the forum's official website. The standard is referred to as Wimax, as well as IEEE 802.16. The expectation is that the term "Wimax" will become recognized as an outdoor, high-capacity, data delivery system, just as "Wifi" had become recognized as an indoor, smaller-capacity system.
One of the forum's primary goals has been to create a system in which every piece of WiMAX Forum-Certified equipment will be interoperable with other WiMAX Forum-Certified equipment, according to the forum website.
Although the technology is considered to be in nascent stages, some of the players in this field have been well-established, creating and deploying custom outdoor wireless delivery solutions since 2000, including Aperto Networks, a systems manufacturer based in California, and TowerStream, an Internet service provider based in Rhode Island, with network coverage as of February 2006 in seven states and plans to expand to five more states within the next few years. TowerStream began in 2000 as a Cisco Certified Partner, but shortly thereafter created a partnership with Aperto, after Cisco "end-of-lifed" the product they were building, which was designed to deliver full-duplex T1 service to the end user, and was composed of a Cisco 2600 router with a wireless card, and Western Multiplex integrated outdoor radios.
The initial relationship developed between TowerStream and Aperto provided a smaller, easier to deploy product at less cost. With standards-based products currently being manufactured by Aperto, using Wimax-certified standard-based chips manufactured by [www.intel.com Intel], the expectation is that hardware costs will continue to decrease, and new features will be added to Wimax products. TowerStream's primary product is a VoIP- and VPN-compatible full-duplex T-1, boasting complete independence from the local copper loop, the absence of loop charges and line tariffs, and unprecedented fast deployment turnaround, and the company also provides DS3 and faster T-1 connections to enterprise clients. The T-1 installation is accomplished using a small and discreet 8-inch square outdoor antenna. While the gear is generally installed in a fixed location, and generally requires an unobstructed view (line-of-sight), technologies are under development to provide roaming services, cell-phone compatibilities, and non-line-of-sight capabilities. TowerStream is beta-testing these new systems, and is expected to be among the first providers to offer some of the newest features of Wimax-compliant gear. TowerStream also provides bundled VOIP services through an agreement with Vonage, providing a complete package for end users looking for a telco-free solution, and underlining the clear potential of Wimax as a world-changing disruptive technology.
For more information on Wimax, visit http://www.wimaxforum.org For more information on TowerStream, visit http://www.towerstream.com, or email mark@towerstream.com
--Mark 12:24, 23 February 2006 (EST)
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