View Full Version : The prospects for WiMax technology have been hugely overhyped
tibby.dude
30-01-2005, 02:51 PM
The reality, however, is that WiMax has been hugely overhyped. Despite claims by several firms that they are offering WiMax technology today, the actual number of WiMax devices on the market is precisely zero. That is because the WiMax Forum, a standards body that oversees the technology and ensures that gear from different vendors works together, has yet to certify any devices with the WiMax label.
Rest of article is here
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3600112
Yeah, and at one point in history the idea of flight was thought to be ridiculous. Just because it's an emerging standard, doesn't mean its gonna be crap.
Everyone thought Bluetooth was a dumb idea, but now every single PDA and cellphone is being made with it, even cars (the new BMW's).
hArTh
30-01-2005, 03:56 PM
The reality, however, is that WiMax has been hugely overhyped. Despite claims by several firms that they are offering WiMax technology today, the actual number of WiMax devices on the market is precisely zero. That is because the WiMax Forum, a standards body that oversees the technology and ensures that gear from different vendors works together, has yet to certify any devices with the WiMax label.
Rest of article is here
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3600112
What a stupid line of reasoning ... shoot the author.
Standards dont emerge over night.
tibby.dude
31-01-2005, 12:30 PM
What a stupid line of reasoning ... shoot the author.
Standards dont emerge over night.
"Sure I have been crying hoarse about this crap, but hopefully now finally rest of the world will see the light. With $500 in consumer premise equipment costs, the technology doesn’t make economic sense even as a DSL replacement, though it could. It will be relegated to a back-haul application, and that’s exactly what it is good for."
Now let's see.
A respected tech journalist "Om Malik" of business 2.0 magazine vs a unknown hack named hArTh from myadsl.co.za making predictions on WiMax.
His blog is at http://www.gigaom.com
Still think he needs to be shot ???.
arf9999
31-01-2005, 01:37 PM
tibby.dude
Get over yourself.
The argument about $500 premise equipment costs is just so much cr@p. Any emerging technology has a traditionally high start up cost (hello Sentech, Iburst), but prices generally fall rapidly as the standard is accepted. 5 years ago 802.11 equipment also cost an absolute fortune, but now, thanks to large scale implementation and economies of scale it is exceptionally affordable. The success of any technology of this type is largely based on the support it receives from industry. WiMax is supported by Intel, which in itself makes it likely to succeed.
hArTh
31-01-2005, 06:57 PM
"Sure I have been crying hoarse about this crap, but hopefully now finally rest of the world will see the light. With $500 in consumer premise equipment costs, the technology doesn’t make economic sense even as a DSL replacement, though it could. It will be relegated to a back-haul application, and that’s exactly what it is good for."
Now let's see.
A respected tech journalist "Om Malik" of business 2.0 magazine vs a unknown hack named hArTh from myadsl.co.za making predictions on WiMax.
His blog is at http://www.gigaom.com
Still think he needs to be shot ???.
tibby.troll is definately a troll.
Economies of scale allow multi-billion dollar chip fabs to produce components that joe average can afford e.g. CPU's. New tecnology often is expensive ... but once EOS kick-in prices plummet.
But then again trolls were never good at exploring the logical conclusions of their own bait arguments. Wimax, physically, is ultimately a collection of cleverly arranged microcircuitry on a chip and, as such, can be driven to arbitrarily low prices given a great enough volume.
tibby.dude
31-01-2005, 09:46 PM
WiMax is supported by Intel, which in itself makes it likely to succeed.
Have you ever heard of the Itanuim CPU ???.
It was a rather stellar 64 bit success for Intel ... in fact so stellar that development partner HP dumped it and Intel had to copy's AMD 64 bit implementation (Opteron/Athlon64 x86-64) and call it EMT64 to spare themselves the embarrasment as not to be blown away in the market.
Not everything Intel supports turns into gold.
We read that Telkom is busy with WiMax trails with Intel but it turns according to an article posted here just to be for "back-haul" i.e replacing microwave links.
http://informationweek.mobilepipeline.com/news/59200226
These guys reckon that WiMax will compete with DSL and Cable...worth a read.
alchamy
01-02-2005, 09:25 PM
and rpm saves the thread.
I for one support the Wimax idea, the biggest problem with wireless technologies atm is latency. In Particular when it comes to last mile applications. Wimax promises to change that.
The technology will get cheaper sooner rather than later, the hype being generated will ensure high production & sales resulting in low prices. Fortunately the rest of the world is not like Telkom and the laws of supply & demand still hold true.
Who the *&#@ is Om Malik!?! :D
Decotey
03-02-2005, 10:19 PM
I hope it comes with a cheap price tag :/
CreepyCrawley
04-02-2005, 09:06 PM
In this country? hehehehe