WiMax - Why Not?

Craig McCaw is a visionary, who has had an uncanny ability to predict the future of technology.  WiMAX has the potential to do for broadband access what cell phones have done for telephony - replacing cable and DSL services, providing universal Internet access just about anywhere - especially for suburban and rural blackout areas.

Just like in the early 1980's Clearwire's Craig O. McCaw has been buying up licensed radio spectrum. You may not have heard of Craig but in the early 80's he recognized local cell permits being sold by the the FCC were greatly undervalued and he started bidding cellular phone licenses. He did his buying under the radar screen of the telcos and, by the time they recognized what he was doing it was basically too late � Craig had already purchased and owned licenses in most of the major markets.

Of course he had the money - in 1986 Craig and his brothers sold a cable television business their father had left them for $755 million and concentrated on building a national cellular phone network. The story continues - MCI Communications sold its cellular and paging operations to Craig in 1986 for $122 million and their company went public with the brothers holding around 40% of the company. His last big acquisition in the cell market was the $3.5 billion deal for LIN Broadcasting where he outbid Bell South. With the LIN acquisition Craig and his brothers had almost complete control of the 1989 U. S. cell market.

McCaw brothers sold the company to AT&T in 1994 for $11.5 billion and a lot of people figured they would just ride off into the sunset � not the case!

Fast forward to today - Clearwire, under Craig's direction, has quietly purchased enough licensed radio spectrum  to build a national WiMAX network.

What is WiMax?Let's begin by putting WiMax in context.  You and I both have cable modems. This is Broadband access - for residential access either a DSL or cable modem and at the office either a T1 or a T3 line - pretty expensive and not available in all areasWe also have WiFi access - at home, at work or on the road WiFi routers or wireless access points provide mobility with connectivity - hot spots are very small, so coverage is sparsenot that many years ago, we both used dial-up access - many (71%) use dial-up either because broadband is not available or too expensive - painfully slowThat's where WiMax comes in to the picture. WiMAX or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is the name given to the IEEE 802.16 wireless standard, which provides:

• speed of comparable to broadband service
• wireless access (significantly cheaper than cable or DSL and much easier to extend to suburban and rural areas)
• broad coverage - much more like a cellular network rather than small isolated WiFi hotspots

WiMAX works much like WiFi but supports higher speeds, greater distances and a greater number of users. What's needed for WiMax?WiMAX components include:

• A WiMAX tower, not unlike a cell-phone tower, but able to cover a much larger area - up to 3000 square miles for a single tower versus 10 sqr miles for cell  [Rhole Island is 1045 sqr miles; Bermuda 22 sqr miles; and Delaware 2489 sqr m