The drumbeat of support for WiMax products has begun to sound a bit more loudly. In August, Sprint Nextel became the largest domestic telecom carrier to throw its weight behind the next-generation wireless option. “The Sprint endorsement was a bit of a surprise because the company had other options for adding high-speed features to its cellular network,” said Craig Mathias, principal at market research firm Farpoint Group.
I'm always surprised to see WiFi and WiMAX compared, as if they are competitive technologies. While that might be the case in remote circumstances, wouldn't you say they are at best complementary technologies? WiMAX solves problems like attenuation (my local wireless broadband provider cannot get signal to my house because of LOS issues and building attenuation). Let's say they upgraded the network with WiMAX to extend the network; if the signal came to a CPE (outdoor or indoor) posted in or near my office, I'd still use WiFi to network the rest of the computers throughout the house. Seems confusing to juxtapose the technologies.
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Service Providers Throw Weight Behind WiMax
Posted by: Paul Korzeniowski September 21, 2006 04:00 AMThe drumbeat of support for WiMax products has begun to sound a bit more loudly. In August, Sprint Nextel became the largest domestic telecom carrier to throw its weight behind the next-generation wireless option. “The Sprint endorsement was a bit of a surprise because the company had other options for adding high-speed features to its cellular network,” said Craig Mathias, principal at market research firm Farpoint Group.