WiMax is more widely used now

Slashdot It! An emerging long-range, high-speed wireless technology is expected to spread quickly and be available globally within two years, a key backer of the so-called WiMax technology said on Tuesday. "In a year or two, we will see it in many metro zones and areas of heavy demand," said Dan Eldar, head of Intel's design center in Israel, where the WiMax technology is being developed. "It will take time to reach a massive deployment." Sprint Nextel, the No. 3 wireless carrier in the United States, said on Tuesday that it is soft-launching its Xohm mobile Internet service for employees in Chicago, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., ahead of a commercial WiMax launch later in 2008 in select U.S. cities. Sprint Nextel has said it will spend $5 billion by 2010 on a WiMax network using the new 802.16e standard. Smaller mobile carrier Clearwire is also planning a WiMax network. WiMax, which is expected to bring in higher revenues to the telecommunications sector, enables high-speed Internet connections in the tens of megabits per second--far faster than the very popular Wi-Fi, which users connect to networks over short distances. "It will enable the same type of (broadband Internet) on the road as you have at home," said Gaby Waisman, general manager of Europe for Alvarion, an Israeli maker of WiMax modems and equipment. WiMax can cover a stretch of as much as tens of kilometers, depending on the number of users. In New York, for example, many base stations will be required around the city to meet the heavy demand, while a sparsely populated region will need fewer, Eldar noted. He said that in addition to the United States, mobile WiMax is close to being rolled out in some European and Asia-Pacific countries, including Russia and Japan. "Estimates for the number of subscribers to WiMax ranges from the high tens of millions to more than 100 million in the next four, five years," Eldar said before a news conference to mark the start of a WiMax trial by Intel, Alvarion, and 012 Smile.Communications, in the southern city of Sderot. Sderot, which has been hit hard by rocket fire from Palestinian militants, will be the first test of WiMax in Israel. Further rollout in the country depends on the success of the trial and how quickly the Communications Ministry allocates licenses to telecommunications providers. Via Cnet Protect your computer with Windows Onecare Get paid $7.50 for reviewing my post