Intel plans to replace WiFi with WiMax

Intel said today it is planning a rapid roll out of WiMax technology and services around the world in an effort to keep equipment manufacturing costs as low as possible.

This will involve persuading Asian manufacturers to ramp up volume production of hardware in order to reduce costs. At the same time the company is planning up to 100 trials of wireless broadband services around the world to stimulate demand.

"Wherever you see WiFi today we envision seeing WiMax tomorrow," said Scott Richardson, general manager of Intel's broadband wireless solutions division.

"We're investing to enable all kinds of platforms; laptops, PCs, phones and other mobile devices. We're in business of high volume low cost products and that's where we want to go with WiMax."

With the first WiMax chipsets rolling out of the company's plant in Panang, Malaysia Intel is trying to get other Asian manufacturers involved. The goal, said Richardson, was to drive the cost of WiMax modems below $200 to spur adoption.

He continued that between 75 and 100 trials of wireless broadband services were currently being planned for this year, both in the developed world and in "high growth IT markets" such as India and the Ukraine.

In this country BT has already started trials in the United Kingdom and is planning to offer services initially in rural areas where the costs of cabling are prohibitive.

"It's all about getting broadband to 100 per cent of the country", said Chet Patel, operations manager of BT's wireless access group.

"Our trials have show WiMax speeds are very good, comparable to fixed [DSL]. We started a large deployment in Northern Ireland months ago and we'll be offering WiMax as one of a portfolio of connection services."

But he said that, in the UK, widely available "plug and play" WiMax similar to today's DSL was at least 18 months away.

Typical deployment speeds will be between 1 and 10Mbps, explained Jonathon Pagget chief operating officer of wireless equipment manufacturer Airspan. But he added that spectrum allocation was critical to the WiMax market.

The availability of the right kind of spectrum could have serious implications for the roll out of services. Richardson said that governments were allocating large chunks of spectrum, but at relatively high frequencies, mainly 2.5 and 3.5GHz.

This would mean the signal would have difficulty penetrating buildings and would lose strength more quickly. Worldwide the most common spectrum allocated will be between 3.4-6GHz, but in the United States Richardson said there were moves afoot to allocate the 700 MHz spectrum to WiMax.

He also sought to allay concerns over multiple standards within WiMax. The current 802.16d standard is designed for fixed installation while the next generation standard 802.16e is designed for mobile connections.