While WiMAX has yet to be all the rage in mobile Internet access, one of Acer's Aspire PC laptops are certainly going to help build up momentum for it. And it would appear that this specific model is built around the standardized technology recently accepted by the U.N. telecommunications agency back in 2007. The new unit is currently under development, though its release hasn't been officially announced. More at the full story.

We're finally seeing something concrete when it comes to the often-rumored yet mysterious Google phone. Samsung Electronics, the purveyor of mobile phone technology, is finally planning to launch phones with Google's own Android phone platform. More details in the full article!

WiMAX was recently added as a global standard for mobile devices by the U.N. telecommunication agency. According to analysts, this acceptance will probably create interest in the development of the wireless technology which will eventually lower hardware costs.

While this move was met with opposition from China because it wanted its own wireless broadband standard to be accepted as the global standard, U.S. officials fought for the IMT-2000 and other high-speed mobile network changes. White House expert on science and technology Richard M. Russell commented on their stand regarding this:

We strongly believe in an approach that includes as many technologies as possible, within the appropriate technical parameters, because diversity will lead to greater competition, lower prices and more benefits to consumers.

The companies which supported WiMAX in its early stages, such as Intel Corp., Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia, were understandably thrilled by this turn of events. The general manager of Intel's WiMax business and vice president of Intel Capital Sriram Viswanathan spoke about this saying that "We're super, super, super thrilled. We've been at this for the last three years, and it was a very, very extensive amount of work with a lot of players in the industry."

For those who aren't familiar with WiMAX, it is a telecommunications technology which allows users to send information wirelessly over long distances. With data transfer rates of up to 70 megabits per second and has an effective range of up to 40 miles, this technology is seen by many as the next step in high speed internet access. With the way things are going, it looks like it might very well be.

  

For those of us who prefer their online gaming and internet surfing on the go, then this next gadget should be right up your alley: the G100, as revealed by POSDATA. Touted as the first ever mobile gaming device to take advantage of WiMAX, it's set to take the gaming world by storm - as not only does it offer high-speed internet surfing on the go, but also online gameplay that could turn out to be free of any lag whatsoever. Awesome.

So what does the G100 actually capable of? We're not sure of most of the details yet - that being, graphics and sound - but what we do know is that it will take advantage of WiMAX. WiMAX is essentially a more powerful version of Wi-Fi, with its range able to cover vast areas instead of just a few meters. This pretty much means that you'll be able to play online virtually anywhere - and you don't have to walk all over just to find an access point.

Looking at the G100, it certainly looks the part of a gaming handheld. It sports a four-inch touch sensitive screen, as well as a sliding eight-button control pad. Handy.

And if you're worried if it's just going to be a gaming device, fret not - besides WiMAX, it also supports both Wi-Fi and BlueTooth networks for added enjoyment - a great feature, considering that users can hook up the G100 to their laptops for access to any of those three networks.

Certainly a very cool new gadget from POSDATA. Updates as we get them!

Motorola has developed a WiMAX chipset for cellular phones. This is part of the company's move to create "controlled application centric architecture" which supports both 3G and 4G devices.

WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access provides gadgets to transfer data wirelessly at a high speed comparable with a DSL or broadband connections. Cellular companies have been looking into this technology as a method to increase the bandwidth of phones allowing a variety of data intensive applications to be used.

The new chipset that Motorola has developed is said to be superior in many ways to the current 3G technology in cost, size, speed and most importantly, power. We won't have to wait long to get our hands on this kind of technology either since the company will be releasing new phones with this chipset by next year. Vice president for Platform Planning and Systems Architecture at Motorola Gary Koerper was understandable very excited about this saying:

The introduction of the WiMAX chipset modem solution marks yet another significant milestone in Motorola's end-to-end WiMAX solutions portfolio, allowing users to enjoy a superior Mobile Internet experience. With this chipset, Motorola has been able to redefine what is possible for WiMAX mobile devices, enabling a wider portfolio of devices, from voice-centric handsets to multimedia terminals.

In the past few years, Motorola has been very aggressive at marketing their WiMax infrastructure products. If the sales of these new WiMax enabled phone picks up, then their investments in developing this technology will be paying off with large dividends.

Looks like WiMax technology has finally come of age, and even before Samsung launched their M8000 which uses the WiBro service in Korea, Motorola and Intel Corp. have already announced plans for their collaborative adoption of the mobile WiMax which is based on 802.16e standards.

Now, Nokia jumps on the bandwagon as well as it announces that they will soon start selling WiMax-enabled cellphones by 2008. By the end of 2007 and the first quarter of 2008, the giant mobile communications company would have already sold Flexi WiMAX Base Stations operating in the 2.5 GHz band and in the 3.5 GHz band.

So what's so hot about WiMax? Think of Wi-fi chips embedded in your mobile phone. So, just about any place where a wi-fi cloud is hovering, you can get connected to the Internet via your WiMax-capable mobile phone.

We've already heard of PDAs and other devices in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world which are already WiMax technology as early as now. What makes the technology entirely different from the ordinary Wi-fi setup is that it will be more broadly available. Nokia describes its Flexi WiMAX Base Stations as compact, lightweight, indoor-outdoor compatible, and requires only low power consumption.

WiMax is basically a DSL connection on your mobile phone, and mobile providers won't worry too much, since there's no danger of overloading the system, unlike when a provider gets swamped with an overload of voice calls.

Lucky, lucky Milton Keynes looks like it's going to become the first British town to get high-speed wireless network internet access based on WiMAX technology. This will be quite a bump up for Milton Keynes: from limited availability of high-speed broadband to high-speed net access via WiMAX.

Unlike WiFi, WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) offers high-speed net access at multi-megabit speeds over vast areas, instead of just a few meters. WiMAX is seen to be a tough competition for WiFi, as it's already being used in thousands of hotspots around the world and has far more extensive wireless coverage than WiFi.

However, as compared to WiFi, WiMAX still remains widely unused. This is due to the need for expensive hardware and the specifications needed to use it in conjunction with wireless roaming plus other wireless technologies are still yet incomplete. In the US, Sprint Nextel announced its plans to build a national WiMAX network that will cost the company $3 billion.


Net connection firm Pipex will be responsible for administering a trial run of a Wimax network, which will be used to take broadband access to the townsfolk that could not get internet connection. If things go well, Pipex said that the Wimax system should be up and running by the end of this year and hopefully deployed in eight UK towns by 2008. A detailed outline of Pipex's plans is not available yet, not for at least four weeks.

Earlier this week the Sprint Nextel Corporation announced its intentions to plan, develop and deploy "the first fourth generation (4G) nationwide broadband mobile network. The 4G wireless broadband network will use the mobile WIMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) IEEE 802.16e-2005 technology standard."

WIMAX is seen by many as the best possible wireless solution for the next generation of network infrastructure. Of course there are still many competing technologies in line for the throne and they too are fiercely defended and promoted by leagues of investors and other interested parties. Because of this, WIMAX rising to dominance is not at all guaranteed.

The project, as stated in a recent press release by the Sprint Nextel Corporation, will encompass a partnership between industry giants Intel, Motorola, Samsung and Sprint Nextel. The partnership aims to develop a, "nationwide network infrastructure as well as mobile WIMAX-enabled chipsets that will support advanced wireless broadband services for computing, portable multimedia, interactive and other consumer electronic devices." This ambitious plan seems to be a dream come true for mobile technology lovers. Imagine finally having access to a fast (broadband speeds) wireless standard that could be built into various types of hardware from laptops to the tiniest of handheld devices.

While competitors, like Verizon Wireless, are pursuing EV-DO as their wireless technology of choice, WIMAX offers a larger coverage area per antenna (or tower) and higher throughput in each direction (faster download/upload speeds). The cost of actually completing a Nationwide WIMAX network in the US has been prohibitive enough to deter past attempts. Hopefully, Sprint Nextel's emphasis on partnerships and efficiency will keep costs reasonable enough to provide an affordable product to consumers.

Verizon is currently in the planning stages of a network-wide upgrade to revision A EV-DO (faster next generation version of EV-DO). Even with the headstart, Verizon's EV-DO network will not be able to compete with a WIMAX network. If the Sprint Nextel Corporation is able to achieve its goal of getting a nationwide WIMAX network off the ground it will cause a revolutionary change in how we think about and use wireless technology.

3G (short for third-generation technology) allows mobile phone users to download information, exchange email, enjoy music and movies, shop, and send instant messaging all from their cell phones. In addition to making telephone calls, of course. It created such a big buzz with its video telephony feature that many European companies spent billions of dollars to purchase huge licensing fees. Berlin European mobile phone companies for instance coughed up $129 billions for 3G licenses.

The scenario of a 3G world was everyone on the planet (or at least in places where 3G is available) is connected to each other through the mobile phone. Today, despite all the services available, cell phones are still used mainly for making calls. Analysts think the 3G has the potential to become the Edsel, the car nobody wanted, of the mobile phone industry.

Only 5.4% of nearly 720 million cellphone connections in Eastern and Western Europe at the end of June were 3G, says Wireless Intelligence, a joint venture of the GSM Association and the market researcher Ovum based in London. Worse, the technology is facing stiff competition from other forms of cheaper high-speed data services such as digital mobile broadcasting and WiMax.

Despite 3G's near-fatal start and high costs, it has not lost all its fans. Operators and executives say the technology is here to stay with most GSM networks being refitted to 3G standards to carry the bulk of the voice traffic. According to the GSM Association, by the end of 2007, the number of people using 3G networks will go up to 111.1 million from 62.8 million. GSM's own performance in Germany started with a dismal 10% market penetration but increased by 80% within years. They say 3G's rise in popularity will be similar because "That is how this business works."

It seems that Brits favor WiFi more than WiMax. So as not to leave you in the dark, these two are very different from each other -- WiMax stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access by the WiMAX Forum, formed in April 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard IEEE 802.16, also known as WirelessMAN. The Forum describes WiMAX as "a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL."

On the other hand, WiFi is a brand originally licensed by the Wi-Fi Alliance to describe the underlying technology of wireless local area networks (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications. A person with a WiFi device, be it a computer, telephone, or PDA, can connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. Hotspots can range from a single room to many square miles of overlapping hotspots. Wi-Fi can also be used to create a Wireless mesh network.

The usual problems of Wi-Fi won't be seen in WiMax. In WiMax, networks can grow but users could still maintain usable bandwidth, and interference just doesn't occur. So from that alone, you'd think that WiMax is better than WiFi. But according to some educated opinions, WiMax just won't work in the UK. The reason? Issues in spectrum allocations. There is no uniform global licensed spectrum for WiMAX which equates to the fact that WiMAX has no in-built interference protection. It will assume any other network it comes across is part of the same network and, if it isn't, the network is likely to die, resulting in horrendous data loss.

That isn't the case for WiFi since WiFi networks are friendly towards each other, in the sense that if there is interference from another WiFi network, each will try and ignore the other or at least minimize the interference they cause each other. With that, even if British WiMax players such as PCCW and Pipex have spectrum that could power WiMax, it is most likely that when the two companies will launch services, they'll be delivering "private" networks and WiMAX for the masses is unlikely to happen, unless more spectrum is released.