A comparison of wi-fi and wimax with case studies - Florida State ...

application, its biggest opponent will be 3G. Or if Wi-Fi wants to take broad area wireless
network as the goal, the WiMax is blocking its way. Compared to 3G, Wi-Fi is faster, but the
signal is not as stable. And compared to WiMax, Wi-Fi is slow, has small-coverage and is
unreliable. In this difficult situation, Wi-Fi should not keep thinking its killer application or try to
occupy market share of other wireless technologies. The future of Wi-Fi should be cooperation
not competition.
Since Intel integrates Wi-Fi with laptop computers, it speeds up the demand of wireless
access. The laptop has come into the main stream in the IT industry. People can carry their PC
with them, but they cannot carry the ADSL. Therefore, it is the reason why a wireless network is
desirable. Generally, most people believe that businessmen are the one who need wireless access
everywhere. However, the major Wi-Fi users or the potential users should be home workers and
students. Observing the behavior patterns, it is easy to find out that people want to get rid of
annoying wires and use the Internet access in different rooms at home, and students need to
access the Internet for information, online games or entertainment in different indoor hotspots at
any time. Another important fact from the behavior patterns is there is no killer application for
Wi-Fi. People access the Internet for enjoying ubiquitous service not just for a single purpose.
Thus, with the new coming standard IEEE 802.11n, Wi-Fi should focus on how to get involved
to meet the demands of home users and students. That means to provide ubiquitous access.
Therefore, the next problem is if the ISP (Internet Service Provider) wants to build the
public Wi-Fi network. Is it possible and what are the issues behind it? This topic will be
discussed in chapter five.
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