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Broadband subscribers in South Africa are familiar with wireless broadband solutions provided by companies like iBurst, Sentech, Neotel and Telkom. These broadband solutions allow users to connect to the Internet without any physical landline connections and theoretically allow people to connect to the Internet wherever they are. This connectivity is thanks to WiMAX technology, a not so recent technological development that is only now truly coming into its own.

 

WiMAX is the term coined by the WiMAX Forum – a non-profit organisation focused on increasing the use of WiMAX technology throughout the world. The term means Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It is, simply put, a telecommunications technology that allows the wireless transmission of data through a wide variety of transmission modes. These modes include point-to-multipoint links all the way to fully mobile broadband access to the Internet. Currently it provides broadband speeds of up to 3 Mbits/s without the need for any landlines or cables.

 

The advantage of the wireless connectivity offered by WiMAX makes it ideal for a host of different technological applications. These include the connection of Wi-Fi hotspots to the Internet, providing a wireless broadband connection to the Internet, assisting with data and telecommunications services in remote locations, providing a broadband connection to the Internet for businesses as a continuity plan if the landline is disconnected and perhaps the best of all, providing true portable broadband connectivity.

 

It is perhaps the ability of WiMAX to offer broadband access that is making it receive as much attention as it is. Many companies are turning to WiMAX broadband access as a way to ensure that their employees are always connected no matter where they are. WiMAX is already proving to be stiff competition for the service providers that are already in the marketplace as well as being able to occupy the niche areas where normal broadband has not been economically viable.

 

In South Africa WiMAX can bring broadband access to places where the landline infrastructure is either lacking or simply non-existent. Already many rural areas are taking advantage of wireless broadband access to connect to the Internet. While wireless modems and connection fees are a little more expensive than standard landline connections, they can be performed in a fraction of the time. Wireless broadband access has already made a difference in schools, hospitals and villages all over South Africa.

 

Even though WiMAX is not a new technology, it is only now that this wireless technology is getting the attention it deserves. WiMAX is the perfect communications solution whether for simple networking or fast broadband Internet access far from the city.

 

 

 

 

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