Widening wireless – New WiMax technology allows broadband users to access Internet from more places

When Scott Richards is at his home in Portland, Ore., he taps into the Internet using a broadband connection from his office about 5 miles away.

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Staff Writer

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There’s no wire tethering the two locations. Instead, the Intel Corp. executive connects wirelessly to an antenna on top of his office building that sends a broadband signal to a small flat-panel receiver outside his home.

"There’s a row of trees in between, but it’s pretty clear," he said. "I’m doing case studies, but this is the type of thing that most people can do pretty soon."

In fact, Richards envisions that within a couple of years, consumers won’t always have to run home, or to the office, or to the nearest cafe with a Wi-Fi hot spot to cruise the Internet.

They will be able to connect at high speeds while sitting on a park bench or to download music or a large video file onto a PDA while standing at a street corner.

Richards’ vision of the future relies on the development of a wireless technology called WiMax, which promises to blanket large areas with an extremely fast Internet connection.

The idea of connecting to the Internet using radio signals has been around for years. Different companies have taken a stab at it, using custom- built equipment that later proved too costly. But since 1999, tech firms have been working with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers to work on new technical standards for wireless networking.

Then last year, Intel helped start the WiMax Forum, a group of high-tech and telecommunications firms that wanted to use the institute’s standards to create a technology that can deliver wireless broadband. The forum boasts a membership of more than 150 companies including Intel, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Alcatel, Fujitsu and telecommunication giants such as SBC, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom and France Telecom.

WiMax has been called Wi-Fi on steroids because of its great range. While a Wi-Fi signal reaches a couple of hundred feet to create a local wireless network, or hot spot, WiMax promises to send broadband Internet signals up to 30 miles.

The purpose of the technology is not only to allow users to connect to the Internet more easily, but also to allow Internet service providers to reach new customers without having to dig and lay wires, which can be costly.

WiMax essentially follows a set of technical standards called 802.16 that was created and ratified by the institute — which also came up with Wi-Fi, or 802.11, specifications.

The first version of 802.16 has already been approved by the institute. This paves the way for tech firms to start building and selling WiMax receivers next year that would give homes and businesses wireless broadband Internet access from service providers’ towers that could be miles away.

The second phase would kick in starting 2006, after the institute ratifies a new version that would allow laptop PCs to tap into high-speed Internet anywhere within the range of a WiMax tower. Intel has also said it intends to include WiMax in Centrino, its suite of chips for laptop PCs.

Wireless Internet service providers, also known as WISPs, already exist, providing service to small- to medium-size businesses in some communities.

For example, NextWeb in Fremont has 2,000 customers, including the city of Menlo Park, which connects to the Internet using a wireless signal from a base station about a mile away in downtown Palo Alto.

Menlo Park pays $500 a month for the NextWeb service, which has bigger bandwidth than the back-up T-1 service from a wired service that costs twice as much, according to Danny Daniels, Menlo Park’s IT manager.

However, companies like NextWeb have to rely on proprietary custom- designed equipment that’s costly, making it prohibitive for consumers at home who are used to receiving free or discounted equipment while paying $30 to $50 per month for a DSL or cable-modem service.

Also, none of those services offers connections straight from laptops or other portable devices, which WiMax promises to deliver in two to three years.

Supporters of WiMax are quick to point out that the new technology delivers bigger bandwidth over a greater distance than current wireless broadband Internet services, and that the cost should come down with standardized equipment.

"Like any technology, it has tremendous potential, but the potential of the technology depends on the way it is used," said Shiv Bakhshi, a wireless infrastructure analyst at the industry research group IDC.

The success or failure of WiMax remains to be seen as products and services roll out in the coming years. One obvious application of WiMax is in emerging markets where there is no infrastructure to deliver broadband Internet services, said Ron Resnick, director of marketing at Intel’s broadband wireless division and president and chairman of the WiMax Forum.

"Think about the cost of delivering broadband through wire where wire doesn’t exist today. It’s astronomical," he said, referring to the prospect of ripping up streets to lay copper or fiber- optic lines in such countries as India, China and Russia.

In the United States, WiMax has the potential to expand into rural areas or urban pockets beyond the reach of current DSL or cable services, said David Deas, vice president of SBC Labs in Austin, Texas.

That would include about 20 percent of SBC’s telephone customers, who are too far from central offices to get DSL service, he said.

Despite such optimism, WiMax will surely face some stiff competition at least from cellular phone service providers. They are expanding their own bandwidth to deliver digital content to handsets that are increasingly becoming more like multimedia devices that play music and video.

Deas noted that such cell-phone service providers as AT&T, T-mobile, Verizon and Cingular Wireless have or plan to provide services that can pump as much as 500 Kbps of data. That bandwidth, though, pales in comparison with WiMax’s promise of up to 75 Mbps, which is yet to be proven on a mass-market scale.

WiMax’s large bandwidth could also threaten telecommunications companies and their telephone services because the new wireless technology could enhance the emerging Voice over Internet Protocol, which allows users to make telephone calls inexpensively over the Internet.

Deas, whose company owns 60 percent of Cingular Wireless, doesn’t think WiMax would be a big threat to telecommunication companies and their traditional phone businesses.

In fact, he noted that it would be extremely difficult for any newcomer to compete against the telecommunications giants like Cingular."I don’t think mobile phone operators are sitting there shaking in their shoes over WiMax," Deas said.

Still, Deas said SBC is conducting technical trials of WiMax at his lab in Austin, although it remains to be seen whether the telecom giant will turn it into a business venture by offering wireless broadband services using the new technology.

On the flip side, tech giants like Intel, which is trying to get more action in the communications business and wants to be a key manufacturer of WiMax chips, are pushing hard to market the new technology.
WIDENING WIRELESS

Intel and other tech companies are working on a technology based on a new wireless standard to expand the reach of broadband wireless Internet access. Currently, computer users rely on Wi-Fi hot spots in places like Starbucks to get Internet access. In the future, WiMax, the new technology, would blanket an area as large as several square miles so that anyone in that zone can tap in to get broadband Internet access..

HOMES AND OFFICES: Starting next year, WiMax-certified equipment will be available. It will allow homes and businesses without DSL or cable service to have broadband Internet access wirelessly..

LAPTOPS: Starting in 2006, Intel Corp. plans to include WiMax-certified chips in Centrino, a suite of chips for laptop PCs that would allow users to hop on the Internet anywhere within the range of a tower sending a broadband signal. .

PDAs AND OTHER HANDHELD DEVICES: Starting in 2007, Intel expects WiMax to be included inside PDAs and other handheld devices for broadband Internet access. .

TOWER: Wireless service providers can either use existing cellular towers or mount new antennas atop highrise buildings to transmit broadband Internet signals to 3 to 5 miles.

E-mail Matthew Yi at [email protected].