Even Varsavsky is talking about it. The new Nokia 6136 can connect to mobile phone and wi-fi networks. Some people, The Register for instance, consider this device the “end of Skype”, since it will allow users to use VoIP without depending on a computer.
Novasoft, a company settled in Malaga, is installing a wimax network in Mijas, a town in the Costa del Sol with many rural areas where broadband hasn’t reached yet. This is the first official wimax installation in Andalusia; this Southern region was also the first one in the whole country to experiment with this new wireless technology.
Adianta, the Galician engineering company, has just published a technical report about the current state of WiMAX. (IE 802.16). The WiMAX standard improves and complements wi-fi networks’ abilities to give Internet connections from further distances and with a bigger broadband, which offers the opportunity to adopt new services like IP Telephony or videoconferences.
Samsung, Nokia’s first rival, has already joint the wimax technology. Nokia, however, still wonders how they should affront the boost of this new wireless machinery that threatens with start a revolution in the world of mobile telecommunications. The company has decided to remain aside until a new market is created.
Two months ago, Nintendo made the decision of activating a game online that is only available for those wi-fi connections offered by certain operators. According to the data of the Japanese firm, the game has been completely successful and it has won already 850.000 users all around the globe.
3G is getting ready to compete against wimax. The new LTE (Long Term Evolution, referred to wireless networks) will allow wimax to reach 20 Megas per second, which is much faster than the 3,6 Mega speed that HSDPA (the latest novelty in 3G) would reach in the ideal conditions. But we’ll have to wait until 2010.
Following the example of Philadelphia and San Francisco, Chicago City Council is planning to create a wi-fi infrastructure in the whole city. The councils are looking for a new way to offer Internet access to the community, fighting the competence of the ADSL and cable sector, which isn’t very liberalized.
Motorola has adduced the biggest amount of information about the project that intends on spreading in Macedonia the world’s biggest wireless network. Apparently, the main network consists on around 130 wimax relays that provide with connection to the 531 wi-fi points that are installed in schools and the civil services.
Fon is causing sensation, especially in the USA. There are already two projects that are very similar to the company managed by Martín Varsavsky: WifiTrankYou y Wibiki. Both of them aim at sharing wireless access to the Internet, for free at the moment.
City councils from several countries have started to create wireless networks both with mesh wi-fi and with wimax. Two of the most famous cases are Philadelphia’s, were the project is already working, and San Francisco, were it is still a tender project.