Re: OT: [Computerworld:] "Cisco takes aim at WiMax"

There are some substantial differences between WiMax and WiFi.
The Muni WiFi nets are about providing 802.11 throughout an area. Considering the limited range of the 2.4GHz band used, it's fairly difficult and there tend to be a lot of small dead zones.
WiMax is a wide-area technology in a completely different (and fully licensed) band. WiMax placements cannot be done by consumers because you have to pay a lot of money for the location-specific license and meet FCC siting requirements. ClearWire holds most (about $3 billion worth transferred from Sprint) of the WiMax licenses in the US.
WiMax is more of a competitor to 3G cellular. Some have put it forward as the 4G cellular standard, but it's not clear what will happen there, since Sprint and Intel prefer WiMax, but NGMN chose LTE, and many carriers don't care which is used, as long as everyone uses the same radio standard.

The Cisco thing is about providing the base-station equipment to ClearWire and offering a Linksys box for WiMax-to-WiFi similar to routers already available from various competitors for 3G-cellular-to-WiFi.

Hope that helps.


Mike Schwartz wrote:
> This link:
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=339523&source=CWNLE_nlt_thisweek_2009-05-18
>
> points to an article ("Cisco takes aim at WiMax") from Computerworld.
> Does this relate to this old thread? :
> http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20080225.172251.1ee32f7a.en.html
> [OT: (is this OT?) ["Tempe ... isn't alone"] www.computerworld.com on
> municipal wifi woes]
> or, is my ignorance about the term [WiMax] even more than I thought?
> "see also": this other old post:
> http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20080324.232746.84d13a21.en.html
> [Re: OT: (is this OT?) udpate - [news item: "Sebastopol"] (was: Re: [...]
> municipal wifi woes)]
> (including, the link it has, to a NY Times story...)
>
>
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