[Cu-wireless] Thoughts on the 802.16 (WiMax) White Paper?

[Sascha Meinrath]

Hi all,

I've been reading through 802.16 (WiMax) information and was wondering
what people thought about the new standard.  Originally, the standard was
for operators in the frequency of 10-66GHz -- but a recent ammendment
added 2-11GHz to the spectrum that's covered by this new standard.  This
ammendment means that WiMax will be directly competing with 802.11x
technologies.

The White Paper is available at:

http://www.wimaxforum.org/news/downloads/WiMAXWhitepaper.pdf

The White Paper lays out WiMax uses including residential and business
(DSL- and T1-level services); Data, Voice, Video (and other QoS uses);
wireless hotspot backhauls; and cellular tower backhauls.  WiMax also
includes "flexible channel widths" (1.75-20MHz), support for "advanced
antenna systems", dynamic frequency selection, etc.

802.16a also utilizes a "TDMA protocol" for controlling access/scheduling
to the system and prioritizing latency-sensitive uses like video and
voice.

WiMax also "has been designed to scale from one up to 100's of users
within one RF channel".  The White Paper points out that 802.16 utilizes
OFDM while 802.11 uses CDMA -- what worries me is that OFDM is built to be
usable at higher power -- thus, 802.16 could be deployed to "drown out"
802.11 transmissions.  I don't know about OFDM versus CDMA, anyone want to
weigh in here?

My major concern is that the combination of the ammendment allowing WiMax
at lower frequencies as well as the basis of the protocol on orthogonal
frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) that existing telecomm giants could
use this protocol to flood the existing unlicensed spectrum making
Community Wireless Networks much more difficult to deploy.

Thoughts?

--Sascha

-- 
Sascha Meinrath
Project Manager & President      *      Project Manager
Acorn Active Media Foundation   ***     Eggplant Active Media
www.acornactivemedia.com         *      www.eggplantmedia.com