WiMAX and Wireless Standards

Service providers must make difficult decisions as to which technology to choose in order to enable them to offer advanced services and demand for high bandwidth throughput as subscribers want their broadband connection “anytime, anywhere and anyway”. As WiMAX offers a low cost per subscriber and a rapid return on investment, it will enable a new market entrant to reach profitability quickly, especially in underserved markets where incumbents cannot afford to roll out economical (as compared to a telephone company’s data T1 service) broadband solutions. The bottom line indicates that mobile WiMAX is a superior 4G technology designed to provide for 4G services, beyond the current 3G technologies’ horizon. It is also the only 4G technology available today. While Long Term Evolution (3GPP-LTE) may provide competition to mobile WiMAX it will only be available in 4–5 years time. A comparison between IEEE 802.16m and LTE-Advanced is performed and the potentialities of IEEE 802.21 and 802.22 are highlighted as well.