Practical Applications

The ICDC technology plan relies on the cooperation and assistance of the local government, tenant associations, civic groups, chambers of commerce, and residents. This will be essential for the rapid and economical deployment of base station locations. With the network in place, connecting residential and commercial subscribers within the coverage umbrella will be quick and relatively simple.

Imagine a radio access network that provides broadband access to users at home, in the office, in areas underserved by wireline services and even to users on the move equipped with portable devices like laptops, PDAs and smart phones. WiMAX can provide a flexible radio access solution that offers these features, based on an attractive full IP architecture delivering the capacity required to support wireless broadband services.

Wimax is a viable high-speed Internet access solution for the following segments:

Municipal Area Network (MAN)

WiMAX supports a robust wireless network infrastructure with excellent manageability, security, radio performance, and reliability characteristics. These core capabilities define the range of services and connectivity options available to a municipality. A WiMAX-powered municipal wireless broadband network will be able to:

• Interoperate with the city's existing wired networks and existing wireless LANs (WLANs.
• Support the administration of all network access authentication schemes.
• Support the connection of as many clients as required (e.g. municipal workers, public access, and mobile users).
• Support the connection of as many client devices as required (e.g. IP-based surveillance cameras, IP-based parking meters, cell phones, and laptops, etc.)
• Implement and support traffic and service management, network aggregation, and connection to one or several service providers.
• Intelligently segment network traffic and apply quality of service (QoS) to prioritize and support different types of traffic
• Track network usage by application and users in order to evolve the infrastructure appropriately and also support billing of specific user groups.

Electrical Medical Records

Without widespread broadband adoption, many other federal technology projects cannot move forward efficiently. The stimulus bill includes funding for a rollout of electronic medical records. The Department of Health & Human Services regulations require patients to have access to their own medical records, and the natural way to grant easy and private access to digital medical records would be through a secure online interface. Yet the biggest users of the public health care system, the elderly, are also the most resistant to adopting the technology that would reduce costs. It may prove worthwhile to incentivize nonconnected households to get broadband just to realize the greater savings of a fully digital, networked healthcare system.

Smart Grid

The modern Smart Grid proposed by the new administration is heavily dependent on a persistent two-way flow of data between utilities and residential customers to track electricity usage in real time. Future intelligent thermostats and other household control systems that are in constant communication with the utility to better manage the local grid's electrical load. The utility could get the advantage of more efficient operations, and the citizens get the benefit of some of the lowest-cost broadband access services in the U.S.

Residential and SOHO

Today this market segment depends primarily on the availability of DSL or cable. In some areas the available services may not meet customer expectations for performance or reliability and/or are simply too expensive. In many rural areas consumers are limited to low speed dial-up services, since many rural locations have no available means for high-speed Internet access. WiMAX technology enables an operator to economically address these 'niche' markets and demonstrate a winning business case under a variety of demographic conditions.

Small and Medium Business

This market segment is very often underserved in areas other than the highly competitive upscale urban and suburban environments. WiMAX technology can cost-effectively meet the requirements of small and medium size businesses in low density environments and can also provide a low-cost alternative to Cable, DSL and leased line services in economically-stressed urban areas.

WiFi Hot Spot Backhaul

WiFi hot spots are being installed at a rapid pace. One of the obstacles for continued hot spot growth however, is the availability of high capacity, cost-effective backhaul solutions. This application can also be addressed with the WiMAX technology. And with nomadic capability, WiMAX can also fill in the coverage gaps between WiFi hot spot coverage areas.