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

Operating environment specifications:
• Electrical: 90-264 VAC, 2.0 @ 90 VAC, 47-63 Hz
• Temperature: 32°-104° F (0°-40° C)
• Relative humidity: 10-90% non-condensing
5.2.3. Analysis
The WiFly has been in operation for about 21 months. As of the end of August 2007, there
were one hundred and fifty thousand registered customers with an average of six thousand users
per month. The population coverage is 96% (two million six hundred thousand people) and the
number of APs are 4600. [72] This is the biggest wireless network construction in the world.
However, there were many complaints since the first day of service. There are several reasons.
First, the signal is unstable with too many dead spots. Second, coverage is concentrated in
metropolitan areas; the geographic coverage is only 50%. Third, the signal path is too
unpredictable. This is because of the multipath fading and signal reflection. Forth, the price is too
high and lacks service applications. These problems can be classified as two parts, mechanical
and marketing. The mechanical part includes signal stabilization, AP coverage and security; the
marketing part contains service applications and pricing rate. [76] – [78][85]
Compared with the population coverage, the numbers of user is very low. Table 5-7. This
project spent a total of approximately thirty million dollars, but ended up facing a low usage
situation. Taiwan has a strong manufacturing background and in the 1980s and 1990s, MIT
(Made in Taiwan) became a well known mark around the world. With this ability, the
infrastructure installation is not a difficult job at all. WiFly is a first city-wide wireless network
project; therefore since there is no precedent to learn from, WiFly has to learn through trial and
error. [76] – [78][85]
Date
Terms
Table 5-7 The Numbers of Subscribers
Registered Users Active Users Industry Customer
2006/6 45,000 20,000 N/A
2007/1 110,000 35,000 70
2007/8 150,000 6,000 (monthly) N/A
In the mechanical problem part, the signal is the first problem. It is what most customers
complain about. This problem is caused by many factors, such as the number of users, weather,
environment, AP locations, and RF interference. This is a common difficulty of all wireless
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