Take it to the max
News technologies allow operators to provide better and more bountiful services.
The arrival of broadband has prompted much innovation, not least on the Internet, where user-participation in Web 2.0 sites like MySpace, YouTube and Facebook would simply not be possible, nor would video on-demand.
The latest and greatest new technology is WiMax, which provides wireless broadband and circumvents the need to install costly cabled infrastructure. Positive spin-offs range from supplying Internet services to rural areas to supplementing a wired area.
In Soweto, a suburb notoriously underserved by Telkom’s ADSL service, Internet service provider MWeb says it connected 100 WiMax subscribers in a week as part of a trial of the technology.
Telkom has also started offering WiMax commercially, but at much the same pricing as its ADSL service.
“The cost-effectiveness of WiMax gives operators more leeway to address end-user affordability issues than is possible for fixed-line operators,” says MWeb Home general manager Natalie Thayer.
“Though cellular solutions are available today, the cost of these services is not significantly lower than fixed-line alternatives. WiMax, therefore, has the potential to offer new network operators a fast and cost-effective entry into the network space.
“The tremendous worldwide impetus to ensure that WiMax becomes an international standard will drive costs down further due to huge production volumes,” Thayer says, “while ensuring the rapid and continuing development of WiMax technology and end-user devices. For example, Intel is already preparing to make it next-generation Centrino wireless chipset WiMax compatible.”
Noel Kirkaldy, wireless broadband director for Motorola networks in the Middle East and Africa, says there has never been a technology with as much universal support as WiMax, especially for frequency allocation.
Kirkaldy demonstrates the small size of the WiMax base station, a far cry from the current container-sized set-ups for cellphone towers, calling WiMax boxes “street furniture”.
He says that, hopefully, the confusion over the two flavours of WiMax, officially designated 802.16d and 802.16e, will be resolved with the latter, certified later, being adopted by more manufacturers and operators because it can be used for both fixed and mobile applications.
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