WiMAX

WiMAX, the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a telecommunications technology aimed at providing wireless data over long distances from point-to-point links to full mobile cellular type access. It is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, which is also called WirelessMAN which stands for Metropolitan Area Network. The name "WiMAX" was created by the WiMAX Forum, which was formed in June 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard. It was devised to provide wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. The standard of Wi MAX is 802.16-2004, which can cover upto 50 Kms radius service area and high data rate upto 70 Mbps in the freq range.
The variations can be noted as below:
802.16-2004 is often called 802.16d, since that was the working party that developed the standard. It is also frequently referred to as "fixed WiMAX" since it has no support for mobility.
802.16e-2005 is an amendment to 802.16-2004 and is often referred to in shortened form as 802.16e. It introduced support for mobility, amongst other things and is therefore also frequently called "mobile WiMAX".
It has wide variety of applications contributed by its wide area coverage and high data rates. These range as follows:
*Services like POTs, Leased lines with G.703, VOIP, Ethernet can be extended.
* connecting the Wi Fi Hot Spots to the internet as back bone.
*Data bandwidth Management features like CIR, PIR & Best effort are supported.
And the places wer it has already shown its effect. Remember the tsunami in December 2004.
WiMAX access was used to assist with communications in Aceh, Indonesia, after all communication infrastructure in the area, other than Ham Radio, was destroyed, making the survivors unable to communicate with people outside the disaster area and vice versa. WiMAX provided broadband access that helped regenerate communication to and from Aceh.
There is no uniform global licensed spectrum for WiMAX, although the WiMAX Forum has published three licensed spectrum profiles: 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.5 GHz, in an effort to decrease cost: economies of scale dictate that the more WiMAX embedded devices (such as mobile phones and WiMAX-embedded laptops) are produced, the lower the unit cost.
The disadvanage-well all coins hav 2 sides. So here goes...A commonly-held misconception is that WiMAX will deliver 70 Mbit/s over 50 kilometers. In reality, WiMAX can do one or the other — operating over maximum range (50 km) increases bit error rate and thus must use a lower bitrate. Lowering the range allows a device to operate at higher bitrates.
So as it can be seen. WiMAX is an emerging technology tho not much in deployment in India will soon cover the entire globe and be an imp part of our mobile systems in a way much similar to Wi-fi now.