Wireless web access at 200MBps may sound like a dream for ADSL users, but it’s the vision promised if WiMax takes off in Australia. The question is, when will it be widely available? Now one Aussie ISP has blown away claims that the next-gen technology is flawed.
WiMax’s promise as an all-encompassing broadband feed blanketing our cities and delivering super fast Internet to our laptops took a battering this week, with claims that the technology is a “disaster” (see the writeup here).
But fear not, downloaders. We spoke to several ISPs who say that they are pushing ahead with WiMax rollouts, and in one case they argue it’ll be on par or even better than ADSL2+ or 3G.
CEO of local ISP Big Air, Jason Ashton, refutes claims that WiMax has serious technical issues, telling PCA that Big Air is pushing ahead with WiMax expansion plans.
“The message is, WiMax is here now, it’s real, it’s being rolled out across the country,” he told PCA. “We’re going head to head with adsl, and we’re going head to head with fibre. We’re pitching our service a step beyond adsl, in terms of performance and reliability.”
Big Air has about 30 WiMax base stations connecting businesses across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but Ashton said he expects to add about 4 more by the end of the year and is considering expanding into Adelaide and Perth. In Sydney Big Air has about 20 base stations and is looking at the northern beaches area and the city’s south as sites for new stations.
The company does an “enhanced” version of fixed WiMax, which means the antennae is fixed to your building. "We can do up to 200MBps. It's very high speed,” Ashton said.
If you haven’t heard of BigAir, that’s because they service businesses. But could this be a taste of what’s to come? Later this year Intel will launch its Centrino 2 laptop platform with WiMax support, and meanwhile Unwired is also trialing mobile WiMax.
We spoke to Unwired CEO David Spence earlier this year, who told us the ISP could start building WiMax networks from the middle of this year.
“The way you connect will be pretty much the same as wifi. Your laptop will pick up that there’s a Wimax area network in the area,” Spence said.
But despite the excitement, WiMax’s potential as an alternative to 3G and ADSL is being dimmed by criticisms about latency and connection issues. Also, as Internode pointed out to us, crucial spectrum around Australia has been locked up by the mobile phone companies. Internode has launched WiMax in south Australia, but told us they have no immediate plans to offer the service elsewhere.
“You might have a pocket here and a pocket there, but you’d make no money out of it, so why would you do it?" Internode representative John Harris told us earlier this year.
Which is a shame, because if Big Air’s hype is to be believed, WiMax sounds like the broadband you’ve been waiting for. Not only is it fast and doesn’t require wires, but the Big Air variety is asynchronous, which means good upload speeds. “For any of these apps where data needs to go both ways, ADSL and fibre to the node are not going to be suitable,” Ashton said.