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> We're talking about 3 different technologies here I'd be interested to know why we aren't talking about four different technologies, with the fourth one be
by scholia 10y ago
> We're talking about 3 different technologies here
I'd be interested to know why we aren't talking about four different technologies, with the fourth one being wireless.
You can roll out fast broadband to large areas just by building a few towers to broadcast WiMAX. There's no "backhoe time" and you avoid the cost of digging up the streets.
IEEE 802.16m will now give you a gigabit to a fixed point
You could do the same with LTE but you need a lot more towers and I don't know about spectrum availability.
However, WiMAX seems to have failed in the US, with Clearwire shutting down in March...
- sgt101 10y agoThe bearer is contended. There are 100s of users sharing the cell throughput, which works for the normal burst mobile cases but when you get to streaming cases like updates and video not so much.
- dforrestwilson1 10y agoEverything I've read about wireless is that we're hitting a wall when it comes to wireless ranges. 5GHz for example is much faster, but also a much shorter range (and bad wall/tree penetration) vs 2.4GHz. Maybe I'm wrong though?
- jaredklewis 10y ago> building a few towers to broadcast WiMAX Easier said than done. It might be workable in dense urban areas where there are already lots of tall buildings, but getting approval to build towers in many residential areas is like pulling teeth. To support peak usage hours when everyone is at home HD streaming hulu and netflix, even with WiMax, you will need way more (i.e. smaller) cells than wireless carriers have today, which means lots more towers. Plus you'll need fiber going to all of these small cell towers, which means you're half way to FTTN anyway. I think wireless internet might fit some niche situations well, but I'm skeptical there is significant capital or long terms savings in the general case. Not to mention that it will never be able to compete with fiber on latency or bandwidth.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago> However, WiMAX seems to have failed in the US, with Clearwire shutting down in March... I played the WiMAX game in the US as a consumer. If you didn't have clear line of site with the tower, you got terrible speeds if you still had a connection. Driving + WiMAX was a no go unless it was through an empty field (never got to try this one). Using WiMAX near a window and getting up for some coffee was a no go. Hell, being outside that pane of glass made a huge difference. It was really bad for mobile. > You can roll out fast broadband to large areas just by building a few towers to broadcast WiMAX. I can see this working if customers had outdoor antennas installed.
- scholia 10y agoThanks for the feedback. WiMAX does seem to be successful in some lower-tech countries, but I guess it depends partly on what else is available....
- IndianAstronaut 10y agoI used to have Clear internet. Sad that it failed. I had great wireless for a time and suddenly had to cancel becUse I just stopped getting signal.