Newswise — Broadband access continues to climb, but will eventually peak. When it does, hundreds of millions of people outside of urban areas will be left off the high-speed Internet, because it's just too expensive to wire them up to phone and digital cable companies with new copper, coax, or fiber-optic cable.
There is an alternative: "wire" them up wirelessly. In fact, even in places where digital subscriber line (DSL) and interactive cable exist, wireless broadband can be cheaper. For example, in Owensboro, Ky., the local power and water company has started a high-speed broadband service at US $25 a month, just $2 more than what many residences are paying for low-speed dial-up access.
Wireless metropolitan-area networking is already a $250-million industry, employing proprietary technologies from companies like Alvarion and Soma Networks. IT will soon pick up steam as some of the largest communications companies in the world, such as NTT and Verizon, conclude large-scale testing.
It will shift into overdrive now that an IEEE Standard, 802.16, is being used by a consortium of computer and telecom companies to ensure compatible chipsets, access cards, and base stations. The WiMax Forum, as it is called, includes some of the industries' heaviest hitters--Intel, Nokia Fujitsu, and Proxim--and some of the most innovative start-ups around--Alvarion, Airspan, TowerStream, and Aperto.
In this first part of a two-part special report, Senior Associate Editor Steven M. Cherry looks at some of the first "wireless DSL" systems and how both standards-based and proprietary technologies will be used in the next few years to create digital-divide-busting wireless last mile networks. A second article, by expert Steve Stroh, investigates and explains the latest in wireless personal area networking, ultrawideband.
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