Intel banks on rapid growth of WiMax

Intel has been laying out its roadmap for the widespread introduction of wireless broadband using the 802.16 standard, known as WiMax.

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco the company showed off its first chipset with integrated WiMax, codenamed Rosedale.

Samples are already with customers, and it will be offered as an option on the Centrino platform by 2006.

Potentially, one WiMax base station could provide connections faster than DSL over a 30-mile radius, according to Intel.

"WiMax will be to DSL what cellular was to landlines: a more convenient, lower cost technology," Intel president Paul Otellini told delegates.

"We predict the same kind of growth for WiMax as was seen with Wi-Fi. By 2008 we think that eight per cent of all internet connections will be via WiMax."

Intel is looking to make WiMax as cheap as Wi-Fi to aid adoption. The chip giant is planning to build WiMax transmitters by 2005, and is expecting WiMax receivers in the home to take off by 2006.

By 2007 it hopes to have WiMax built into notebooks and low-power devices, using the as yet unratified 802.16e standard.

But the company still has hurdles to overcome. Governments have allocated frequencies for WiMax in the 2.5GHz, 3.5GHz and 5GHz band, but this limits the range of the signal.

Intel is after the prime sub-1GHz frequencies currently allocated to televisions as this would allow greater geographical reach and allow the signal to penetrate buildings.

"The nirvana for wireless is sub-1GHz, when the signal can go into buildings," said Scott Richardson, general manager of Intel's broadband wireless group.

"Over the next three years, in the US and elsewhere in the world, these frequencies will start to become available. Intel is working on this with the regulators. By 2006 service providers will enable metro zone networks."

Richardson indicated that the first WiMax installations would be in rural areas not served by DSL. But he predicted "viral" growth once the technology matures. Tests are already going on around the world, he said.