Motorola’s Wimax development managing director for the Americas, Tom Mitoraj, gave a conference in Argentina in which he expressed his optimism in the possibilities of this technology. “It is the technology of the future, as it will bring the Internet to everybody’s palm”. He also thinks that wimax is a clear alternative to 3G networks, because of easier deployment and lower costs.
Two local companies, Cable Unión de Occidente and Avantel, have gotten most of the wimax licences in Colombia. 44 of the 54 regional licences have been given to these companies, leaving Telmex, Impsat and Diveo with none. Other firms getting licences are Emcali (2), Comcel (10), Comsat (1), Cablecentro (2), Servisatélite (2) and S3 Wireless (6). ETB, Telecom Colombia and Orbitel won national licences.
If you are wondering which is the biggest wimax provider in Spain, you will be surprised. It is not Telefónica, nor France Télécom. It is a small telecoms operator in the Basque region, Euskaltel, the same sponsoring famous cycling team Euskaltel Pays Basque.
A group of entrepreneurs from Catalonia (Spain) have launched WiLoop, a wimax provider for local businesses. The new start-up belongs to Eurona Wifi Networks and offers 2 Mbps to 8 Mbps connections together with Al-Pi, a regional carrier owned by France Télécom.
Fon is such a success that every week new options are born based on it. The last one has been created in France and is called KillBills. It offers a system that anyone can use in order to allow access to his wi-fi network without the risks of just opening it. If you want to use it, you need a Linksys WRT54G router and download the KillBills firmware.
Fon’s clones, more or less similar, start to show up. The latest one to appear is TLibre and it will operate in Marseilles with a wi-fi network based on the users’ hotspots. It’s different from Fon in the fact that users will have to pay 5 euros per month to be part of the system, in exchange of unlimited phone calls.
Intel wants to promote the development of wimax and low-cost PCs in Third World countries and, therefore, the company is going to invest one billion dollars throughout a period of 5 years. This project, known as “World Ahead“, aims to taking broadband Internet access to one billion people and to training 10 million teachers in the use of new technologies.
The Galician firm Softgal (Software Services of Galicia) has been the successful bidder to win A Estrada Dixital’s telecommunications network for 567.000 euros. According to La Voz de Galicia (The Voice of Galicia, a local newspaper), the offer includes both wimax and mesh in order to cover the whole town of A Estrada. Wimax will be implemented in the distribution network, to which 12 wi-fi links will be hooked, apart from the other 20 links that will cover the town centre.
In the USA, AOL will sell the wimax of Clearwire, which is the company that bought the Spanish Aló a couple of months ago. The new service will be launched under the name of “AOL High Speed”, and will stand as direct competition against ADSL and cable. During the first phase, the service will only be available in California and Florida and its minimum price will be 26 dollars per month.
Electric companies always looked to telecommunications out of the corner of their eyes. In the past, Endesa, Fenosa and Iberdrola (Spanish companies) invested in operators like Airtel, Auna, Euskaltel or Neo. Their businesses are very similar: to manage a network and offer services through it.