News and New Products

Is WiMax Going Places? It Depends Who You Ask

By David Manners -- Electronics Weekly, 12/14/2006

Whether or not the spectrum issues surrounding WiMax are settled has been a subject of some disagreement.

According to Intel in its announcement of an integrated WiFi/WiMax chipset the global frequency issue is settled.

“With global frequency support for standards-based WiFi and WiMax, scalable channel bandwidth, and high-performance multiple-antennas, the Intel WiMax Connection 2300 will help bring about mobile communications and rich content across supported networks anywhere in the world,” said an Intel statement following the introduction of the chipset by Sean Maloney, executive VP of Intel.

Intel’s statement about the status of the spectrum issues associated with WiMax does not match the understanding of Peter Gardner, technology sector head for wireless communications at 3i Group, the venture capital investors.

“I am sceptical about WiMax as an alternative to either WiFi or cellular. I think spectrum issues may stop WiMax. There is no standard spectrum available. It is strongly regulated in different countries, and there’s no sign of it becoming standardized.”

Nor does Intel’s perception fit in with the view of BT about spectrum issues for WiMax.

“It is very disparate,” a BT spokesman told Electronics Weekly. “Anywhere in the world it is different. The U.K. uses a different spectrum to the US, and it is different to Europe, and there are different reasons for that, like military usage. At the moment there is no uniformly accepted bandwidth.”

Of course it is quite natural for a chip supplier like Intel to take a flier on future standardization and bring out a product to seed a market.

But accompanying the product preview with a statement that bandwidth issues have been settled when they have not is unhelpful.

Electronics Weekly is the London-based sister publication of Electronic News, part of the EDN Network.