WiMax is more suited to city size

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s state information technology departement is looking at options to provide the city with wireless Net acess.

WiMax or the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a telecommunication technology which has a longer range, covering many kilometres. It uses a licenced or an unlicenced bandwidth to deliver a point-to-point connection to the Internet. The difference between WiMax and Wi-Fi is often likened to the one between a cellphone and a cordless phone.

Delhi’s size makes it imperative for any plan to e-enable the entire city to make use of WiMax, whereas WI-Fi is good for smaller cities.

"For Wi-Fi, one needs to buy a communicator and as many receptors as there are terminals, and the reach would depend on the strength of the communicator. WiMax is much more advanced and the speed can go up to 9.2 Mbps. The user pays according to speed and volume. It can be ideal for locations like the Commonwealth Games Village," said an official.

Diptorup Chakraborty, principal analyst in the IT company Gartner, said from Mumbai: "Wi-Fi connectivity is being done in Pune and Bangalore in India and several other cities across the world. A 100% coverage may not be practically feasible, but it works somewhat like the mobile phone network. The signal may be strong in some places and weak in others depending on the kind of infrastructure the service provider offers."

Meanwhile, the IT department official said that with talks of mobile companies supporting 3G services, the GPRS network too can be of great use. However, one hitch in the wider use of WiMax technology is that certain bandwidths are still with the defence ministry. Telecom regulator Trai is in talks with the ministry to "free" those bandwidths.

Source: here ...