[IP] more on OUTSIDE THE BOX: Wi-Fi Is Dead, Long Live Wi-Max

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+@ux13.sp.cs.cmu.edu
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 09:59:40 -0400
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@reed.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] OUTSIDE THE BOX: Wi-Fi Is Dead, Long Live Wi-Max
X-Sender: mail.reed.com:dpreed@127.0.0.1
To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com

The idea that WiMax replaces WiFi is like thinking that 18 Wheelers replace 
private automobiles, or a saw replaces a screwdriver.   That such ideas 
even pass muster in the "press" is a comment on how little the technology 
press understands the technology it covers.  (of course the marketers who 
tell the press how to think are guilty, too - the idea that the prefix "Wi" 
means seems to be "hot new technology that ought to boost the stock price 
like -tronics used to").

What WiMax might replace is coaxial cable or DSL copper, or the fantasy of 
FTTH - certainly the companies that leverage themselves by huge junk bond 
issues to put infrastructure in the ground are vulnerable to a 
high-performance, cheap to deploy, rapidly depreciable alternative.   In a 
stretch it might compete for 3G's slot in the world (if they change the 
underlying physical layer to compensate for 60 mph mobility).

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