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New kid on the block: Will WiMax bump Wi-Fi in municipal coverage plans? Part one

One day soon, mobile Internet users in Philadelphia, Denver, Boston and more than 300 wireless-networked cities across the nation won't need to find a coffee shop with WiFi access. They will simply open their laptops (or PDAs) and log on, wherever they are. But just as cities ramp up their plans to go wireless, WiMax – a brand new technology with the potential to leave WiFi in the dust -- looms on the horizon. Here, Knowledge@W. P. Carey presents the first part of a series of stories examining the business impact of wireless broadband access. 

2006-01-18

In Philadelphia's quest to blanket its neighborhoods with wireless Internet access, the city's chief information officer Dianah L. Neff led the effort resulting in the establishment a nonprofit corporation, Wireless Philadelphia. The project not only enlisted a well-known corporate partner in Earthlink, but also got Earthlink to finance the service's infrastructure. Neff did this in the face of opposition from telecommunication companies worried about competition. In fact, Pennsylvania enacted legislation that was supported by Verizon Wireless to severely limit municipal wireless service. Nevertheless, Earthlink will have a 15-square-mile proof-of-concept area established by March 2006, and Wireless Philadelphia and Earthlink are shooting for a completion date of early 2007. Philadelphia is not the first or only U.S. community to offer its environs as one big "hot-spot" for WiFi (wireless fidelity) access, but it is one of the largest thus far in the planning and development stages. The implementation is designed to make cities attractive to businesses and business travelers; provide Internet access to those unable to afford the steeper fixed-line access, thereby offering the Internet's benefits to a larger market; and to increase the productivity of a city's staff, many of whom do their jobs away from the office. Neff says the ability to update information from the field could save certain workers two hours per day. In fact, when meshed through access points (in Philadelphia's case, with receivers on city-owned streetlights), WiFi can provide laptop access to vehicles traveling up to 60 miles per hour. "As I tell my police officers," says Neff with a chuckle, "I don't want you looking at your laptops at 60 miles per hour." Wi-Fi on the move But they could -- and so could officers in present or future WiFi towns likeDenver, Anaheim, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Boston, Tempe, Ariz., and nearly 300 others considering citywide coverage. WiFi coverage of a municipality works a lot like the technology that drives cellular telephony: a wired antenna or tower transmits radio signals to receivers. The difference is that with WiFi, the signals carry high-speed Internet access. The advantage over cable or DSL access is its mobility. In other words, instead of having to find a Starbucks with WiFi access, users in a municipal WiFi town could simply open their laptops (or PDAs) and log on. That end-user equipment is an important part of the trend toward large-scale WiFi -- millions of devices now either have a WiFi receiver or can be upgraded with a WiFi card.  In-Stat, the telecom research analyst service, forecast in late November 2005 that more than 120 million chipsets will have been shipped by the end of that year. The WiFi Alliance, a group of more than 200 companies devoted to enhancing the WiFi experience, tests and certifies WiFi equipment. Its approval means a device or component will interoperate with other WiFi-certified hardware. According to the WiFi Alliance, more than 2,200 products have earned the designation since 2002. ""Wi-Fi has truly come of age," Frank Hanzlik, Managing Director of the Wi-Fi Alliance says on the alliance Web site. "Today more than 90 percent of notebook computers are Wi-Fi enabled … and we expect the next milestones will come even faster as Wi-Fi becomes integrated into consumer electronics and mobile handsets." So, WiFi's great, right? For instance, Neff says that the main impetus behind Philadelphia's project was Mayor John Street's goal of enhancing neighborhoods, and narrowing the "digital divide" -- the gap between the ability of wealthier folks to have access to technology and services that lower-income people don't have, thus perpetuating a vicious circle. Critics say that providing low-cost Internet access (in Philadelphia, Earthlink plans to charge $10 per month to lower-income households as opposed to $20 for others) means little if a household doesn't have a computer, doesn't know how to use one, can't read, or can't read English. Philadelphia's plan includes donating 10,000 computers, with training. New technology on the horizon However, just as this surge in municipal WiFi gains momentum, there's a wireless technology on the horizon that dwarfs WiFi in terms of information volume, range, speed, and signal strength. Analysts say cities with wide-scale wireless dreams had better include WiMax in those plans. The difference between the two technologies is scale. WiFi is the popular name for wireless local area networks (LANs) that comply with the 802.11b standard set by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) -- those that operate in the 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum with a bandwidth (maximum data rate) of 11 megabits per second (Mbps). With an effective range measured in feet, WiFi depends on wireless access points, which distribute signals that can be received by devices equipped with compatible chips. WiMax is the name for 802.16 wireless networks. It can carry much higher volumes of data over distances up to 31 miles, offering potential for business applications and VoIP as well as ordinary Internet access. It's arguably the wave of the future. According to telecom watchdog Light Reading Inc., in a few cities -- such as Pittsburgh and the Lenexa, Kan. – "WiMax is either a requirement in [requests for proposals] or already deployed as the main access technology. That trend is building steam, creating an increasingly tough sell for vendors offering only WiFi solutions. As Rodney Akers, deputy director of City Information Systems for Pittsburgh, puts it, 'If you haven't considered WiMax, there's a problem.'" "It'll go away," W. P. Carey School of Business Professor of Information Systems Robert St. Louis says of WiFi, "but it won't happen right away." WiMax will emerge as the dominant technology, St. Louis says, because of its numerous advantages: lower expense and quicker deployment, less interference, cheaper maintenance, greater range, and the ability to handle voice, data, and video simultaneously. "WiMax is definitely here to stay," says St. Louis's colleague, Benjamin Shao, an assistant professor of information systems. "WiFi currently has a wider adoption base. [Users] may wait a period of time until WiMax is more affordable and more secure." Shao says that above all, WiMax solves the telecom industry's "last-mile" problem. It's easy to send a signal, but not always to get one. Whereas Philadelphia's digital divide may be between rich and poor, there is an equal if not larger one in the world: rural vs. urban. It's simply not economically feasible for some areas (rough topography, lack of population density) to be a part of the wired infrastructure required to get cable or DSL Internet access. While WiFi's range is measured in feet, WiMax's is measured in miles (three to five in real-world tests). Simple math explains that without a "mesh" of receivers, such as WiFi needs to cover an area, Internet access could be beamed to a vast area with several towers relaying the signal to remote homes and businesses equipped with WiMax-ready devices. Chip giant Intel is leading an effort to make WiMax the world's dominant wireless Internet access technology. The WiMax Forum, a nonprofit collection of more than 230 of the world's major technology and telecom companies, has lobbied with telecoms and governments across the globe for the same WiMax standards (IEEE 80216 for WiMax and 80211 for WiFi) so that there will be interoperability of devices using WiMax. For example, because of different standards currently in use, you cannot use your cellular phone in Europe. To make a call there, you would have to buy a phone compatible with European cellular technology. The WiMax Forum wants this problem taken care of before widespread manufacture of hardware. The WiMax Forum certification program inspects and tests hardware before giving its stamp of interoperability approval. Learning from past mistakes St. Louis says the WiMax Forum is learning from past technology mistakes, such as Apple and Beta: lay the foundation, then build the frame. WiMax will enter the market on a large scale -- towers -- then push down to service providers and end-users. Intel has signed partnership agreements with Nokia and Motorola, and began to manufacture WiMax-capable chips last summer. The standards movement got a major boost last month when the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) approved a global standard (80216e) for mobile wireless broadband. According to the WiMax Forum website, forum members had anticipated this and had been manufacturing accordingly. It now estimates that WiMax Forum-certified products will be on shelves by late 2006 or early 2007. St. Louis estimates WiMax will be in common usage by 2008. "They're doing it right," St. Louis says of the forum's methods. What does all this mean for WiFi? The implementation of WiMax will require upgrades for wireless end users, but the changes should not be costly. "If your wireless is built into your computer -- such as Intel's Centrino chip -- you will have to get a new wireless card," St. Louis explains. "The current WiFi cards sell for less than $50, and the WiMax cards should not be any more expensive. Remember that the average lifetime of a PC is only three years, so the transition should not be that difficult." And new computers will come equipped for WiMax as well as WiFi in the near future. According to the WiFi Alliance Web site, "In the 2006-2008 timeframe, it is expected that both 802.16 (WiMax) and 802.11 (WiFi) will be available in end-user devices from laptops to PDAs, as both will deliver wireless connectivity directly to the end user -- at home, in the office and on the move. The forward-looking municipalities that have invested in WiFi have spotted WiMax on the horizon. Neff says Earthlink has pledged to upgrade Philadelphia's system, saying it will be a "hybrid" system, and that WiFi is worth the effort because for the next couple of years it will offer the only common mobile wireless access.

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