Oct/Nov 2006

The elusive WiMAX technology standard for high-speed mobile data transfer is finally showing signs of taking off. It may not have a big presence in the UK yet, but stand by for a possible change in your perspective of how mobile broadband works.

Within recent months America's Sprint/Nextel mobile phone network operator announced plans to build what it calls a "4G nationwide broadband mobile network" across the US, basing it on WiMAX technology.

Now Nokia has revealed that it is busily developing WiMAX-based hardware. It plans to have network base station hardware ready for network operators by the end of next year, and WiMAX-capable handsets during the following year.

Intel has already talked about incorporating WiMAX wireless chips as standard in some laptop computers within the next year or so.

Motorola, too, is developing WiMAX hardware, and at the Broadband World Forum in Paris this autumn displayed a range of access points and customer premises equipment. Along with Intel and Samsung, the company is involved in the Sprint/Nextel programme, and according to chairman Ed Zander: "We expect that this decision from one of America's leading carriers ... will influence the adoption of mobile WiMAX by other carriers worldwide."

WiMAX stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), and the standard is set out in IEEE 802.16e-2005. Conceptually, the technology hovers somewhere between localised Wi-Fi and wide-area GPRS and 3G mobile data networks. Base stations typically are expected to have a range of up to three kilometres, though this will vary according to location.

This means mobile WiMAX has the potential to offer city-wide mobile Internet access with relatively few base stations. It could therefore offer convincing competition with other current mobile technologies, as well as substituting for wired broadband where this is difficult or unduly expensive to install.

Take-up will no doubt depend on whether an affordable always-on capability is offered. Pricing models for mobile WiMAX deployments have yet to become firmly established.

However, other factors being equal, the performance certainly looks appealing. According to the WiMAX Forum, mobile networks are expected in due course to offer mobile broadband speeds of up to 15 Mbps - far in excess of what is offered by current mobile broadband, or even most fixed broadband networks.

The arrival within the next year or so of mobile computers and telephone handsets that can work with WiMAX as standard could be the development that finally starts to move the technology towards the business and consumer mainstream.

Meanwhile, as with most new technologies, there is always someone who can do it better. At the WiMAX World USA show this autumn, Navini Networks unveiled a solution called Smart WiMAX, which it says can double the speed of standard WiMAX transmissions.