Wi-Fi,vs.,WiMax,Care,Normal,fa business, insurance Wi-Fi vs. WiMax - Wi Do I Care?

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Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Wi Fi Fo Fum, I think I smell the blood...oops wrong tale. This storydoesn't involve giants, but it does involve giant leaps forward in technologythat will affect us all.The other day I was watching two kids play. Each had a tin can up to theirear and they were speaking to each other on the 'phone'. Talk abouttechnological leaps. Yes, the string that I used as a kid to hook up thisintricate communication system had disappeared, and they were now wireless!When I was Batman back then, the string always kept me close enough to Robinso we could hear each other, even around the corner of a cinder block wall.Unrestricted by 'the magic string' these kids tended to drift out of range fromtime to time. Showing true genius, they engaged Billy's little brother toposition himself on middle ground, and he relayed wireless messages back andforth. They called him 'tower'. I laughed.It really is a reflection of a changing world. We've gone from HiFi toWi-Fi, and next on the endless chain is WiMax. The transition from 'HighFidelity', which simply related to sound quality, to 'Wireless Fidelity' orWi-Fi, took about thirty-eleven years. The transition to WiMax is already inplay, yet most of us haven't figured out what Wi-Fi is really all about.According to the 'Webopedia', the term is promulgated by the Wi-Fi Alliance,and is short for Wireless Fidelity as I indicated above. What it means is thatyou can access the Internet from a laptop computer with the right stuff(wireless card) in various locations without the burden of a physical wire.Hold it - Webopedia? Yikes! Yes, it's real, and it defines and explains web'stuff'. I guess Babe Ruth probably thought that Encyclopedias were on thebleeding edge, yet I wrote my 7th grade essay all about him using thatstandard, great source of knowledge. Makes you wonder what 'pedia' is nextdoesn't it?It goes on to say that any products tested and approved as Wi-Fi certified(a registered trademark) by the Wi-Fi Alliance are certified as interoperablewith each other, even if from different manufacturers. That's kind of like Fords & Toyotas use the same gas to make them go,and their owners use the same ramps and highways to pick up milk, or go to thecottage. Even Hudson Hornets used a leaded version of the same fuel.An example where this wasn't so well planned is the access to theelectricity grids in Europe as opposed to North America. The same plugs don'twork in both places.Rather than making that mistake, the Alliance has created an acceptedstandard so that manufacturers create equipment, and the like, that can be usedin a similar fashion to access the web. That means that your laptop, regardlessof brand, will use the same 'hot-spots' to get access. Hot-spots are areaswhere the facility, like Starbucks or the hotel that owns the lobby, has put inthe proper equipment to provide access from your wireless card to the great bigcloud called the Internet. The wireless card is the gas for the Fords &Toyotas, and the hot-spot is the on ramp.And therein lie both the beauty and the problem. The beauty is that I canaccess the web from Starbucks in Atlanta, as well as a hotel lobby inVancouver. If you've ever seen someone doing the hippy-hippy shake with theircomputer in their hands, you're probably witnessing the problem. Wi-Fi accessis limited in both speed and distance. The twisting person was probably tryingto get a more consistent signal in the 'hot-spot'.Enter WiMax. That's not Max Smart and his wireless shoe communications, butit is the next generation of Wi-Fi. According to WiMaxxed.com it "willconnect you to the Internet at faster speeds and from much longer ranges thancurrent wireless technology allows." They go on to say "WiMaxpromises up to a ten mile range without wires, and broadband speeds withoutcable or T1."The result - we are absolved from the penance of viewing way too manyhippy-hippy shakes. Well, not so fast, don't throw out your dancin' shoes quiteyet. It's not on the Wal-Mart shelves for next Christmas, but there are a lotof indicators that it's real, and it's just around the corner.First of all, it is an acronym for Worldwide Interoperability For MicrowaveAccess, and it has actually been in the works for quite a while now. An articletitled 'FCC Move Could Boost WiMax', states "A number of vendors andcarriers have announced products, testing, or support for the standard in thelast month, including Intel, Nokia, AT&T, BellSouth, Sprint, and Motorola."These companies aren't akin to Duke's Pool Room - these are the big boys.The article continues to say, "Congress has been lobbied for months nowto free more frequencies for wireless broadband." AlcaTel states that WiMax will "bridge the digital divide by deliveringbroadband in low-density areas." If you really study that statement, youcan see where we are in the world today. Where governments once ensured thatall residents were able to receive phone service in the Ma Bell days, thatlingo is now being used in relation to broadband access to the Internet. Mayeverybody have equal access is the refrain, but only if it's high speed!So instead of hot-spot hopping, WiMax will provide true wireless mobility.And there's more. In an article by Al Senia of America's Network, he statesthat 'Phone manufacturers such as Samsung and LG are expected to introduceWi-Fi handsets compatible with this service by year's end." O.K., so that's VoIP, except it's wireless VoIP in hot-spots. Next is WiMax,with wide-area wireless VoIP. To be sure, there are quality and security issues to be resolved, whetherthat's for surfing, voice applications, or a gazillion other Internetapplications, before wider market acceptance is achieved. However, I attended arecent presentation by the Gartner Group, where the presenter statedemphatically that security is not an 'if' but rather 'how much'. His meaningwas clearly that the level of security required for business applications willbe achieved, and that commercial providers will find the economic model thatworks. Ditto for quality.We used to trade information at the speed of the Pony Express, when the airwas just filled with farm smells. Now when the air is filled with zeros andones, information is transferred at speeds faster than Clark Kent. If we're toremain on competitive even ground, we had better pay attention to theseapplications that are on the horizon. We have to assume that our competitorsare paying attention.It took a century to transform from Alexander Bell's basic invention towireless phones. However, in the last decade alone, the Internet has met withwide acceptance by business, VoIP has become more common, Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi VoIPis now a reality, and WiMax and wide area wireless VoIP is very nearly on themarket.In the past, I've often used an example of future possibilities by alludingto a chip in our eyebrows that can transmit holographic images around theglobe. That's not even that far-fetched anymore, so I guess I'll have to comeup with a better example. I'm going to have to track down the Jetsons and StarTrek reruns. "Grandpa, why is the sky blue?" That's always been a puzzler. Whaton earth are you going to say when the question is "Grandpa, why is thesky zeros and ones?" That's when you ask yourself, "Wi me?"That begs another question. Where do all the zeros and ones go when they'reused up? Is there a big Z&O dump somewhere? Or should that be backwards -OZ. Oh, that Wizard, I knew he was up to something. Article Tags: Each Other, Wireless Card, Wireless Voip