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[IP] more on OUTSIDE THE BOX: Wi-Fi Is Dead, Long Live Wi-Max




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Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 09:59:40 -0400
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] OUTSIDE THE BOX: Wi-Fi Is Dead, Long Live Wi-Max
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To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx, ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The idea that WiMax replaces WiFi is like thinking that 18 Wheelers replace private automobiles, or a saw replaces a screwdriver. That such ideas even pass muster in the "press" is a comment on how little the technology press understands the technology it covers. (of course the marketers who tell the press how to think are guilty, too - the idea that the prefix "Wi" means seems to be "hot new technology that ought to boost the stock price like -tronics used to").

What WiMax might replace is coaxial cable or DSL copper, or the fantasy of FTTH - certainly the companies that leverage themselves by huge junk bond issues to put infrastructure in the ground are vulnerable to a high-performance, cheap to deploy, rapidly depreciable alternative. In a stretch it might compete for 3G's slot in the world (if they change the underlying physical layer to compensate for 60 mph mobility).

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