Should we be calling it WiMAX, or Why MAX?

For a couple of years now, we’ve been hearing that the next big thing in wireless communication would be the WiMAX standard, a longer-range, mobile version of the Wi-Fi technology used in office wireless networks and public hotspots.

We’ve heard that it would ultimately offer wireless broadband connectivity over wide areas. In the U.S., Sprint even talked about building a national network using WiMAX.

So far, though, there isn’t much more than talk. WiMAX isn’t being deployed in any significant way in Canada. Bell Canada and Rogers Communications built a wireless network called Inukshuk, which both are using to offer fixed wireless internet access, but the technology on which Inukshuk is based is really pre-WiMAX, and it’s fixed wireless, not mobile (like the few WiMAX deployments that exist to date).

WiMAX is clearly one way – not the only way – of offering fixed wireless broadband services where wired alternatives like cable and DSL don’t reach. But its promise was supposed to extend to mobile use as well, and that seems to be taking a long time to happen.

Even Sprint, which appeared to be the poster boy for WiMAX south of the border, now seems noncommittal. Sprint broke off talks with startup Clearwire about its WiMAX plans late last year. Apparently talks have resumed, but their on-again, off-again nature has to make one wonder.

More tellingly, telecommunications industry analysts are starting to say that another standard, called Long Term Evolution or LTE, is the future of broadband wireless services.

Trials of LTE are due to start in 2010. Maravedis, a telecom market research firm headquartered in Montreal, predicted in January that LTE will be the dominant mobile broadband technology in 2012. According to Maravedis, there are real opportunities for WiMAX, but they won’t start materializing until at least 2010.

The fact is, the history of high-speed broadband wireless has been a procession of hype and not much else. Third-generation mobile networks, or 3G for short, have been the next big thing since some time in the 1990s, but have been very slow to materialize.

Yes, we’re all doing e-mail on our mobile phones and PDAs, but we’re doing it using networks that for the most part don’t have the kind of bandwidth originally envisioned for 3G.

And the point is, it works pretty well. Today’s wireless networks may not be up to downloading complex Web pages fast, but neither are pocket-sized screens up to displaying them. For what we mostly do with smartphones and PDAs, the networks we have are enough.

And it’s not clear that there’s a big demand for wireless broadband outside a few areas – like airports and coffee shops – now being served by hotspots. Nor is it obvious that, if there is demand for more wireless broadband coverage, WiFi can’t meet it.

The talk about new generations of mobile networks has been going on for a long time. The networks have evolved, but never as fast as the hype suggested. The way Sprint and Clearwire’s WiMAX plans have been sputtering along suggests that they’re having trouble figuring out what the business model is for this – and part of the problem is there are too many technologies chasing a market that may not actually be all that large or profitable.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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