Re: Many Flavors of Broadband Wireless Data
Jim- Your posted article is a good primer on wireless. But as you know, there are many kinds. I noticed 2/3rds into your article, it went from Fixed Broadband Wireless, right into Mobile Broadband Wireless, without a distinction between the two.
Thread- For those new to the Last Mile here are six main categories of, "wireless," data. All are vying to solving the Last Mile, or Access bottleneck. Big standards battles are taking place in Mobile(Terrestrial) Broadband Wireless. The others seems to have settled down somewhat and are not as confusing.
Fixed(Terrestrial) Broadband Wireless Main broadcast standards fall under LMDS or MMDS. Teligent, WinStar, ViaSat are three good examples of current operators. Sprint/MCI/Worldcom is right on the verge of massive rollouts. Most consider this technology competition for the cable(HFC) and xDSL broadband technologies.
Mobile(Terrestrial) Broadband Wireless Well this one is a nightmare. It is currently not available but ALL current operating cellular providers around the world want to get in on it. Appears to be two main camps, the CDMA or GSM camps. Both want to head in different directions with interim solutions, but all think they will have a "standard" longer term solution. But I have my doubts. In the meantime, it's almost a free-for-all type rumble.
Mobile(Satellite) Broadband Wireless Sometimes referred to as Internet in the Sky. Now this one doesn't have that many competitors vying for this market. It's not here yet but lots of big money behind it. Bill Gates/Craig McCaw are behind Teledesic. Spaceway, Sky Station, etc. are just two others. Overall I believe there are about 6 main players in this game. Not to many forecasts on who the winner will be yet. And as far as I know, no one talks about any standards that I'm aware of. So I imagine each system will be proprietary. But so what if each has worldwide coverage. Standards are a moot point here.
Satellite Broadband Wireless This is one we just talked about upstream. Numerous companies are rolling this out. A prime example is DirectPC. This used to be uplinked with your twisted copper phone line at narrowband speeds. So that is supposedly why it was never popular. But recently the uplink problem has been solved. Two-way systems are rolling out and it's yet to be seen how popular this will be. But it's still not mobile. You need a dish to send/recieve data with. It's speeds appear to be ranked below DSL and HFC connections, but still falls in the broadband camp.
LAN Broadband Wireless Once it's here and now, it'll save a lot of money because desktops don't have to be hard-wired. And you can walk around the campus area with a laptop. A prime example of a standard in this sector is Bluetooth. Lot's of ideas being tossed around today and there appears to be no clear winner yet. Lots of systems are being rolled out today in the 1MB to 10MB range. But nothing appears to be dominating that I'm aware of.
Fiberless Broadband Wireless Very early experimental stage. This was all the rage when George Gilder brought it to everyones attention in his newsletter. It's basically running a optical fiber connection without the fiber. A couple of examples of companies in this game are TeraBeam and fSONA. The real claim to fame is TeraBeam's Point-Multipoint capability. Unlike fSONA which is point to point, whose technology has been around longer and actually have deployments.
Anyway, just thought I would throw out a common problem with a lot of today's financial writers on the hot topic of, "wireless," data. It has caused me a lot of confusion in the past, so read their articles with care. -MikeM(From Florida)
PS Most of the above are called, "Broadband." But that is also another term that is confusing. Today's broadband deployment technologies will be seen as a joke in the longer term future. Which is, IMHO, eight to ten years away. |
