WiMAX – redefining connectivity?

US mobile carrier Sprint Nextel is on the cusp of launching its $3 billion mobile WiMAX (or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) network later this year. This announcement is likely to have more wide ranging ramifications for both the telecommunications industry and the internet than first meets the eye. WiMAX is essentially a better, more efficient form of the currently available Wi-Fi hot spots. However, instead of only being able to cover 300 feet from its hub, a single WiMAX tower has a range of 5 miles!! That will allow an entire city to be covered with a single tower. What’s more, the technology can support multiple users without weakening connection performance.

The net result is that users of the service will be able to operate their mobile devices (including laptops, wireless connectivity capable PDAs, smartphones and cell phones) over the same network, with high speed Internet connectivity. So consider the ramifications for established cable, bell and mobile operators – it is essentially a disruptive technology that will change the landscape. Theoretically, you will be able to watch your favorite cable program on your laptop during your lunch break in the park. You will be able to subscribe to an online music service – except you will listen to it via your PDA while on the train. Instead of using your mobile phone or home phone to make calls… you can using Google Talk or Skype to talk to all your friends across the world by simply paying for your WiMAX monthly fee. And there are a dozen others that break the existing paradigm for cable, Internet and mobile telephony. They are essentially converging! It should be making a lot of established companies nervous. It should also make those companies that are taking the WiMAX route wary of the impact that this technology could and will have on their existing operations. For an example, will Sprint Nextel be cannibalizing their own mobile customers?

It does however throw open the doors to some amazing possibilities. And it also breaks down the walls around the Internet. No longer should we be considering web applications limited to laptops or personal computers that are anchored to limited bandwidth and broadband cable connections. WiMAX will remove the tether around access, and allow users to take web application mobility to a whole new level. As we consider providing users with the best possible ‘experience’, we must consider the inherent freedom that users are about to embrace, and design our applications to operate not only within the confines of a traditional PC, but also within devices that will be able to harness broadband connectivity, but were never intended as consumers of web applications. The technology gives digital marketeers the ability to convert customers more immediately than ever before. Marketeers will be able to target customers on a street corner and empower them to purchase a product or service at that moment via their mobile device – whatever that device maybe. They will no longer have to wait for the consumer to go home, find their website, find the product that they were marketed and then purchase it.

The possibilities, as they say, are endless!!