802.16 | WiMAX

Friday, June 10 2005 - Nokia and chip giant Intel said they would step up their efforts and collaboration to make WiMAX a new standard in mobile broadband Internet access.

Sunday, May 22 2005 - Huawei Technologies and Intel have announced that they will cooperate in building carrier-grade wireless broadband networks supporting the new WiMAX / IEEE 802.16 standards and specifications. Cooperation between Intel and top-tier, global leading telecommunications equipment companies like Huawei will drive the development of the WiMAX ecosystem and rollout of the next generation of wireless broadband networks. Huawei plans to integrate Intel's 802.16-2004 chipsets into carrier-grade broadband network solutions, and roll out the commercial network in the fourth quarter of 2005.

Feb. 25, 2004 - Intel President and COO Paul Otellini outlined Intel's plans for the growing wireless silicon market, focusing on the co-existence of broadband wireless technologies and the impact of Moore's Law on the broadband wireless marketplace:
"The wireless industry is evolving from a web of independent networks into a single, integrated wireless network with multiple standards, and no single standard is sufficient anymore," Otellini said. "There won't be a battle of competing technologies. It will be a requirement that Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and 3G coexist; and that coexistence is going to enable a host of exciting new applications and business models."

Flash-OFDM

June 3, 2004 - WiMAX, supported by U.S. chip giant Intel, offers fast wireless Internet over distances of up to 28 miles. WiMAX aspires to be the long-distance version of existing local wireless Internet systems. A rival system is Flash-OFDMa new wireless technology able to carry data 10 times faster and cheaper than 3G networks. Major wireless service providers such as Nextel in the United States and Britain's Vodafone are trying out Flash-OFDM, Flash-OFDM will start out on laptop computers offering uninterrupted, high-speed connections even when a user's signal switches from one base station to another, allowing employees to access company networks as if they were in the office.

xMax

Stuart Schwartz, an electrical engineering professor at Princeton University, said xMax is not an efficient system to transport data through the airwaves, "but it is doing it in a benign way. You won't even know it's there. It's very clever." The advantage is not only that radio spectrum can be used twice and that xMax needs no special radio band of its own, but especially that it can sit in the valuable low frequency bands which characteristically carry very far and through buildings.
 
Other new broadband Internet technologies, such as WiMAX and Flash-OFDM, need dedicated radio frequency bands. If they are situated in frequency ranges above 1 Gigahertz, the signal has trouble penetrating buildings and other obstacles, or traveling over distances longer than a few miles.
 
XG Technology found a way to put one bit of data on one radio frequency cycle and recover that weak signal with a newly invented filter. If xMax uses a powerful carrier signal -- which does require a dedicated, albeit very narrow radio band -- it can even extend its range and capacity. The first xMax network is currently being built in Miami and Fort Lauderdale where one base station can deliver broadband Internet over a 40 square mile area. The capacity of that wireless network is not bigger than any other wireless technology, which means that more base stations need to be added if a certain number of people are using the network -- typically several hundreds to a 1,000 users. XG Technology, the Florida-based company which owns xMax, is in discussions with several chip makers and equipment makers to build the hardware. Radio chips for devices should be in the $5-$6 range when built in volume while base stations will be around $350,000. Those prices are competitive considering the range covered.


 
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