Is WiMax almost here?
If you don’t know what WiMax is I can explain it in a sentence: WiMax is Wifi on steroids. It seems that 6 large tech companies are banding together to deliver connectivity to the “last mile” by 2009. How will they do that?
In 2009 there will be no more traditional analog television broadcasts. If you get your TV over the air you will have to go and get a new HD TV. Right now TV broadcasters send out a digital and analog signal and use two sections of the spectrum to do it. When the deadline for them to stop their broadcast happens that will free up all of the space that was taken up by the analog broadcasts. That spectrum is key to WiMax.
The six companies will probably buy (or lease) the spectrum that we (Americans) own to deliver high-speed internet to at least one mile from our home or WiMax access point. What the big 6 face now is FCC approval. The FCC is worried that the signals from WiMax will spill over into other parts of the spectrum that is in use by other wireless devices (like radio).
The “Big 6″ include Microsoft, Google, HP, Intel, Phillips, and Dell. By now they have delivered the device to the FCC for testing. No one is quite sure if the FCC will approve this Microsoft-built device. If the approval goes through and the FCC sells the spectrum to any one of these companies for “the greater good” they will come into a large lump-sum of money. That short-sightedness may come back to bite the FCC. We’ll have to wait and see.