Wireless Fast Ethernet by 2010?

Progress in WiMax and Mobile WiMax technology could be rapid, according to Samsung

Mobile WiMax could support streamed video

Mobile WiMax could deliver 6Mbit/s of wireless bandwidth to notebooks, PDAs and smartphones as early as 2008, say experts, whist the 3GPP standards group is working on long term evolution (LTE) technology that could provide 100Mbit/s downstream and 50Mbit/s upstream by 2010. Analysts predict a bright future for mobile WiMax, but the UK and the rest of Western Europe will have to sort out the allocation and licensing of available wireless frequencies before services can be delivered to end users.

Samsung, one of a range of mobile WiMax chip makers that include Intel, has already incorporated chipsets into new handsets and portable devices that are currently being piloted in Korea.

Hung Song, vice president of the global marketing group at Samsung’s Telecommunication Network Business, says the trial is testing 2Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload speeds over distances of up to one kilometre away from the base station in urban environments - and up to 5km in rural areas where there are fewer high rise buildings to block the signal.

A second iteration of the technology, dubbed Wave2 and expected to debut within the 2008-2009 timeframe, should triple those speeds.

“[The Mobile WiMax pilot] is currently up to five times faster than HSDPA [so-called Super 3G], particularly for uploading, though there is a limited number of people using it currently due to coverage,” Song said. “We are targeting mobile TV and multimedia broadcasting, but also enterprise customers who want to run office applications, like sales people that want to check inventories in real time transmissions.”

Mobile WiMax, based on the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.16e specification, is best suited for use in the 2.5GHz, 3GHz and 3.5GHz wavebands, believes Samsung, which is already licensed to a broad mixture of cellular operators, broadcasters and government agencies in Western Europe.

Those operators are still struggling to repay the huge debts incurred in buying licenses to provide 3G mobile data services; one reason why they are keen to make revenues from existing 3G and HSDPA services. This should change in the near future however, as industry consortiums lobby regulators in individual countries to look at new frequency allocations.

Whilst the 3GPP’s LTE proposes 100Mbit/s upstream and 50Mbit/s downstream wireless bandwidth based on the same UMTS, or 4G, technology, Song believes its use on the 5GHz waveband will limit bandwidth and the number of users that can be simultaneously connected.

“The first thing is that they have to allocate the 2.5GHz spectrum for Mobile WiMax [in metropolitan areas]. The lower the frequency, the higher the bandwidth and we do not think it will be economical to provide mobility in the 5GHz spectrum,” said Song.

This week’s Cebit show in Hanover was littered with vendors displaying fixed WiMax transmitters based on 802.16d technology, including Alvarion, but experts agree that the potential of mobile WiMax to cover entire cities is the key to the technology’s wider adoption. In contrast, fixed WiMax may be relegated for use as backhaul or static broadband links.

Research published by Infonetics today estimates that Mobile WiMax revenues will grow to $3.7bn in 2010, a five year compound annualised growth rate of 201 percent. Because of spectrum licensing allocation issues, only 14 percent of the mobile WiMax revenues in 2006 came from the EMEA region.

“The mobile WiMAX market is showing signs of a healthy future, with the infrastructure, components, and handset ecosystem now coming together,” said Richard Webb, analyst at Infonetics Research in a statement.