If Amsterdam is any indication, mobile WiMAX is already starting to overtake widespread WiFi in large metropolitan centers. Today Worldmax, a privately held Dutch firm, with Alcatel-Lucent, has activated a WiMAX network that covers the hub of the city, providing high-speed broadband to subscribers far beyond the limited berth of WiFi hotspots (Reuters).

This network, termed Aurea, is only a shadow of the scale of deployment the company wishes to have in place within the next few years–by the end of the summer, the entire city; by the a few years’ end, the entire country. The new network boasts activation within 2 working days, and a monthly subscription fee, entailing access to unlimited wireless data, of 20 euros a month. Currently, it needs a WiMAX PC card and USB adapter, but as soon as Intel (a large investor in Worldmax) produces its WiMAX-compatible notebook chips, users will have all the technology they need, right out of the box (Edubourse). Quite the efficient relationship!

Worldmax, Alcatel-Lucent, and Intel intends to showcase their new system with live feeds from taxis and cruise ships at the WiMAX Forum Global Congress, which, in fact, just started today. Whether their network lives up to expectation remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure: Worldmax definitely knows how to kick off an event.

While WiMAX tends to have a futuristic image, the Convergence India exhibition in Delhi proved that WiMAX and 3G mobile phone services may be affordable to the lay user sooner than predicted.

Crowds gathered at the Alcatel-Lucent stand to experience the zippy speeds of WiMAX — allowing them to stream smooth video footage, browse the Internet, carry on a video phone conversation with someone on another continent — all at the same time, around five million bits per second.
Making it happen was a matchbox-sized plug-in card that fitted into what is called the PCMCIA slot of a laptop computer.
It was visible proof that superior WiMAX speeds could be experienced today on any laptop with hardware not much different from the wireless data cards now offered by all leading Indian mobile providers. The Hindu, Anand Parthasarathy

The speed of WiMAX that allows for such multitasking is a huge attraction especially in our fast paced environment. Yet, despite the optimistic news in Delhi for WiMAX believers, doubts have been made clear by Garth Freeman, CEO of Hervey Bay’s Buzz Broadband and Australia’s first WiMAX operator. In fact, Freeman has concluded that WiMAX technology is a “miserable failure.” According to Freeman, while the main selling point of WiMAX technology to entice people to switch has been the Internet applications, the non line of sight performance was so poor that such applications including VoIP would not work.

As WiMAX technology continues to be experimented with and tested in real world applications, we will see whether or not it pays to be a believer.