WiMax versus Wi-Fi article

I came across a nice article about the difference between WiMax and Wi-Fi (pdf) that is a nice blend of technical and marketing analysis. It was done in 2004 but it is still pretty relevant. I came across this when researching my wireless machine-to-machine article last month. WiMax may pan out to be a good technology but I still worry about the interference issues that I mentioned in my article. Some WiMax bands are on top of other bands but since the WiMax is supposed to be very broadband spread-spectrum the signals are not supposed to interfere. There are already some precursors to WiMax that use point-to-point microwave links to bring the Internet to your home. Here in the valley you need to have a line-of-sight to a western hilltop to use them. I know my buddy John likes Etheric Networks way better than the partial T1 he got from Pac Bell/SBC/at&t. The new WiMax standard will not need line of sight and it is even supposed to work with mobile applications. I have at&t DSL right now and it is pretty good, but not great. The best deal in town seems to be Comcast cable modems that give 5 mbps continuous and 8 mbps burst. If I could get cable here at the office/shop/warehouse/consulting-place megaplex I would sign up in a minute.

I did a lot of research for my wireless article and built up a pretty nice wireless bookmark file (zip). I have saved the bookmarks both as an Opera bookmark file and as an html file. I had to wrap the files as a zip since that is what I am allowed to save in our website. At least the zip is 68% smaller. I know, I know, if it is an html file why don’t I just link to it. Well the IT department doesn’t think editors should be allowed to post html. To a web site. Yup, really. So then, being creative folks, you ask: “But Paul, if it is html why don’t you just author it this self same blog?” Well the IT department won’t let blog posts go over 7000 characters, including spaces. Sigh. BTW, the Opera-generated HTML file does not render in Opera with indentations, but it does render fine in Internet Explorer. Double sigh.

One other nice thing about the WiMax vs Wi-Fi article linked to above is the acronym glossary. I repeat it below for your edification in case you don’t want to download a pdf. I tried to list them but the html blew up past 7000 characters so you get the table.

AES: Advanced Encryption Standard
BPSK: Binary Phase Shift Keying
BWA: Broadband Wireless Access
CCK: Complementary Coded Keying
CLEC: Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
CIR: Committed Information Rate
CSMA/CA: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance
CSMA/CD: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection (Ethernet)
DCF: Distributed Control Function
DES: Digital Encryption Standard
DSL: Digital Subscriber Line
DSSS: Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum
EDCA: Enhanced Distributed Control Access
ETSI: European Telecommunications Standards Institute
ED-VO: Enhanced Version-Data Only (Data Optimized)
FCC: Federal Communications Commission
FDD: Frequency Division Duplex
FDX: Full Duplex
FEC: Forward Error Correction
FHSS: Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum
Hz: Hertz (Prefix Kilo = Thousands  Mega = Millions  Giga = Billions)
IEEE: Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
ILEC: Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier
ISM: Industrial  Scientific  and Medical
LAN: Local Area Network
MAC: Media Access Control
MIMO: Multiple Input-Multiple Output
MMDS: Multi-channel Multipoint Distribution Service
NLOS: Non-Line-of-Sight
OFDM: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
PCF: Point Control Function
x-QAM: x-level Quadrature Amplitude Modulation
QoS: Quality of Service
QPSK: Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
RC4: Ron’s Code-4
SONET: Synchronous Optical Network Interface
TDD: Time Division Duplex
TKIP: Temporal Key Integrity Protocol
U-NII: Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure
VoIP: Voice over IP
VPN: Virtual Private Network
WEP: Wired Equivalent Privacy
Wi-Fi: Wireless Fidelity
WiMax: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
WISP: Wireless Internet Service Provider
WLAN: Wireless LAN
WME: Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions
WPA: Wi-Fi Protected Access
WSM: Wi-Fi Scheduled Multimedia
WPA: Wi-Fi Protected Access

 I hope you like the article and bookmark file, the wireless article really took a lot out of me since it was not my expertise to begin with. I hope to stay up on the wireless front and give the perspective from the analog radio side of the technology, not the marketing hype we see so much of around here.