With the recent wave of cities in US looking at blanketing themselves in Wi-Fi, the surge of expectations for WiMax and the doubts surrounding it, the future of Wi-Fi and WiMax, I have been trying to follow-up at my best and understand what all of these mean.
Wi-Fi has established itself pretty strongly in terms of residential wireless networks, hotspots at cafes, airports, hotels and now, the Munis. WiMax, with all its promises is being looked upon as the next DSL/Cable alternative. It is important to note that WiMax has two parts to it - fixed and mobile. While, all the activity is around the fixed wireless alternative aka 802.11d-2004, what folks are glued on is the mobile WiMax - 802.11e. While mobile WiMax is slated to hit the markets "sometime" in 2007, there has been a lot of activity with companies installing and trying out pre-WiMax (fixed wireless) equipment. WiMax touts an ideal speed of 75 Mbps and a range of 30 miles. Whether this comes to pass is yet to be seen.
Next, Mesh networking has lately been gaining a lot of ground in wireless networking technology. Very broadly and loosely explained, a Mesh networking device is a wireless device that carries out two functions. One of them is what actually all wireless devices do - connected to their backbone (be it a DSL modem or cell base station), they send and receive their data. Second is where the Mesh topology comes in. A Mesh device also acts as a routing node for other Mesh devices. Elements of Mesh networks engage in a symbiotic relationship. While single point of failures are eliminated, Mesh devices communicate with each other to route their data to the final destination or the backbone. Two interesting developments proving the practicality and benefits of Mesh networking I came across - first, Motorola Mesh networked Buffalo, MN - a small town. And second, a fine article on how Mesh helped revive the WLAN solution in Athens, Georgia that was setup by its University students.
The Wi-Fi cloud located in rural Oregon exemplifies a lot of these. Spanning 700 square miles, it harnesses the convergence of Wi-Fi and WiMax (albeit, pre-), and uses Mesh networking to route data between different wireless Access Points (AP). As it substantiates the value of WiMax, especially in rural/remote areas as an alternative to DSL, the story here also talks about the limiting political factors in the easy adoption of these technologies.
Wi-Fi has established itself pretty strongly in terms of residential wireless networks, hotspots at cafes, airports, hotels and now, the Munis. WiMax, with all its promises is being looked upon as the next DSL/Cable alternative. It is important to note that WiMax has two parts to it - fixed and mobile. While, all the activity is around the fixed wireless alternative aka 802.11d-2004, what folks are glued on is the mobile WiMax - 802.11e. While mobile WiMax is slated to hit the markets "sometime" in 2007, there has been a lot of activity with companies installing and trying out pre-WiMax (fixed wireless) equipment. WiMax touts an ideal speed of 75 Mbps and a range of 30 miles. Whether this comes to pass is yet to be seen.
Next, Mesh networking has lately been gaining a lot of ground in wireless networking technology. Very broadly and loosely explained, a Mesh networking device is a wireless device that carries out two functions. One of them is what actually all wireless devices do - connected to their backbone (be it a DSL modem or cell base station), they send and receive their data. Second is where the Mesh topology comes in. A Mesh device also acts as a routing node for other Mesh devices. Elements of Mesh networks engage in a symbiotic relationship. While single point of failures are eliminated, Mesh devices communicate with each other to route their data to the final destination or the backbone. Two interesting developments proving the practicality and benefits of Mesh networking I came across - first, Motorola Mesh networked Buffalo, MN - a small town. And second, a fine article on how Mesh helped revive the WLAN solution in Athens, Georgia that was setup by its University students.
The Wi-Fi cloud located in rural Oregon exemplifies a lot of these. Spanning 700 square miles, it harnesses the convergence of Wi-Fi and WiMax (albeit, pre-), and uses Mesh networking to route data between different wireless Access Points (AP). As it substantiates the value of WiMax, especially in rural/remote areas as an alternative to DSL, the story here also talks about the limiting political factors in the easy adoption of these technologies.
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