A new wireless technology known as WiMax may one day beam ultra-fast Internet into small towns and urban office buildings that today are beyond the reach of technologies such as DSL, cable or fiber optics.
But for the moment WiMax is still in the testing phase, as companies in Colorado and around the world scramble to understand its possibilities and limitations.
Qwest, the Denver-based phone company, and Time Warner Telecom, the Douglas County provider of corporate telecommunications services, are testing WiMax in the Denver area.
Their tests are part of an estimated 100 WiMax trials being conducted around the world in the second half of this year by AT&T, Sprint, British Telecom and Korea Telecom.
Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, launched its first WiMax-compatible chip in April. Intel is spending $400 million in Colorado Springs on a clean room for manufacturing chips that can handle WiMax and other communications technologies.
WiMax, which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, offers similar speeds to Wi-Fi, the wireless technology commonly used in homes and businesses. But WiMax has a much greater range that makes it a possible future competitor to cellphones, experts say.
In theory, a single WiMax antenna perched atop an office building or a small town’s water tower could transmit a broadband signal up to 75 megabits per second for as far as 30 miles. That signal could deliver data, voice or even television to a portable WiMax handset.
“Those figures are theoretical,” Intel spokesman Dan Francisco said. “In real-life applications, you have trees, valleys and walls, not to mention periods when different amounts of people use the service.”
The reality of WiMax has yet to be seen.
WiMax technology for reaching a specific home or office will be ready this year, Francisco said. But WiMax technology that allows a user to get a signal while moving from place to place may not be ready until 2008 or later.
Qwest has already tested WiMax in a variety of terrains, including the hills of New Mexico, the office towers of Denver and the tree-filled suburbs of Boulder and Highlands Ranch, according to Qwest’s chief technology officer, Balan Nair.
All those tests were done with Qwest employees and technicians. When the first WiMax-certified equipment arrives later this year, Qwest will conduct a four-month test with up to 800 bona fide customers in an unspecified town near Denver. The test will involve different radio spectrums and configurations of the WiMax modem in and around customers’ homes.
“We see a lot of potential for this,” Nair said. “This is about getting wireless broadband out to the masses and tying it back into voice (for phone calls). And video is possible in the future.”
Time Warner Telecom is looking at WiMax as a way to expand its range within its 44 metropolitan markets, where it has fiber connections to 5,280 buildings. The company would use these buildings as “hop-off” points for spreading its reach to other businesses.
Time Warner’s WiMax test started in February and involves a WiMax antenna atop the company’s headquarters. The antenna beams an 18 megabits-per-second broadband signal to locations up to 1.5 miles away, said Lenny Avalos, Time Warner’s director of field engineering. The company is also preparing to test WiMax equipment in its Greenwood Village lab.
“The theory is there,” Avalos said. “Now we have to translate it into reality.”
Questions remain as to whether WiMax has the necessary security and speed for corporations and how it will compare price-wise to a fiber-optic line, Avalos said, as well as how much broadband small and mid-sized companies need.
BridgeLinguatec, a Denver- based language services school, uses a 1.5 megabits-per-second T1 line from XO Communications for 11 phone lines and high-speed Internet for 18 employees.
BridgeLinguatec president Jean-Marc Alberola is unsure about the increased power of WiMax.
“What am I going to do with all that bandwidth?” he said. “Maybe video conferencing, but that is not mainstream enough to have anyone to video conference with.”
Staff writer Ross Wehner can be reached at 303-820-1503 or rwehner@denverpost.com.
