Question B: What is WiMax? What, if anything, should a midsize-company IT department do about it?
Our advice: WiMax, or Wireless Interoperability Microwave Access, is the latest entry in the burgeoning wireless networking technology pantheon. Also known in the trade as 802.16, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 802.16 Air Interface Standard is designed specifically to enable the delivery of secure carrier-grade wireless data transmissions in a wide-area network environment. Unlike 802.11, which is primarily designed for local-area network deployments, WiMax is intended to address the widely known wireless security issues by using an authentication scheme targeted for the carrier market. Since it needs to be able to transmit the signals over much longer distances (up to 30 miles is possible depending on the frequency), the WiMax forum also has worked with the Federal Communications Commission and other government agencies to reserve radio bandwidth frequencies to minimize radio-interference problems.
Small, rural telecomm carriers, universities, and office-park developers are looking seriously at this technology to solve their "last mile" data-communications problems. Like 802.11 before it, the potential for drastic reductions in infrastructure costs will ultimately benefit everyone and translate into slashed telecomm expenses.
Although many companies are working feverishly to bring products to market, given that the standards were finally established only in July 2003, WiMax-based products won't be widely available for at least another year or two. If you have any thoughts of deploying campus wireless, stick with the existing 802.11g technology for now.
Consequently, the short answer is that from the perspective of a midsize company, unless you're actually in the short-haul data-communications business, this technology is unlikely to have any direct short-term effect on your IT department or corporate infrastructure. In the future, the technology has the potential to cut your data-communications costs drastically, but for now WiMax is still just over the horizon.
-- Member Beth Cohen
