Official 4G/WiMax: what is it, why do we want it

[billsmed]

Could the big news from Sprint on Friday not be about the Evo but instead that it took them 5 days to get their new website up and functioning?

I'm j/k, can't wait for some good Evo news this Friday!!!

It's not so much news on Friday. It's supposed to be the beginning of a media blitz put out by Sprint about the EVO 4G and WiMAX, I imagine. Some are saying we should also learn about pricing and release date then too.

 

[bemis23]

On a serious note, for those interested in the WiMax debate, here is a white paper report issued by Sprint. Somewhat interesting.

http://www4.sprint.com/servlet/whit...=item_file&keyname=item_id&keyvalue='4v994ya'

Good info here for the technologically/intellectually curious and far more eloquent and better written than I can provide in a forum post

 

[RiverOfIce]

Umm, ok I've bit my tongue on other things, but this is really bugging me and I've seen it multiple time: WiFi is NOT WiMax.

Hey you know best. I only help design the damn thing, but you are a user you know best. Have fun. I am done here.

 

[bemis23]

Hey you know best. I only help design the damn thing, but you are a user you know best. Have fun. I am done here.

If you don't the fundamental differences of operating in licensed versus unlicensed spectrums I'm seriously doubting the credibility of your "i'm designing it" statement.

 

[billsmed]

Umm, ok I've bit my tongue on other things, but this is really bugging me and I've seen it multiple time: WiFi is NOT WiMax.

Wifi (802.11a/b/g/n) operates in a unlicensed wireless spectrum and does not assign device priority/order for send/receive requests.

WiMax (802.16m) operates in the licensed spectrum (with a couple minor caveats, but the cellular-like service is 99% licensed spectrum usage), and it does assign device ordering/priority.

These two technologies are seperate standards, and the fact that they are both IEEE certified does not mean they are the same - it only means that they are accredited standards.The differences are roughly analagous to a cordless phone (Wifi) versus a cellular phone (wimax).

Both technologies have their strengths, but to realistically expect WiMax tethering to replace your current internet connection is unrealistic at best. Currently at my house I am served 24Mbps down/ 3Mbps up and regularly saturate every bit of my available bandwidth - although granted I'm a fairly data-heavy user and I'm doing a lot more than just watching virals on youtube.

HD video or audio streams, gaming, hefty data transfers (e.g. back ups), can saturate a 3-6mbps with unbelievable ease. Claims that WiMax is capable of higher bandwidth rates (please note that "6mpbs" is a measure of bandwidth, not communication speed - another pet peeve of mine, sorry) are unproven at best. Please also note that "theoretical peak transfer rate" is about as useless a measure as saying you've got a 100 watt stereo amplifier - actually this analogy is rather spot on. Theoretical max output ignores bandwidth requried for data overhead, and also assumes that you are in the optimum transmission range, with 0 packet loss (thus no need to retransfer any missed data), and that the backhaul relatively free of congestion from other traffic. Realistically you can expect to see 50-60% of max theoretical bandwidth as usable in everyday life.

Look, I'm as excited about this phone as everyone else but the technical discussion this far has gone beyond mere hyperbole into the realm of generating sincerely unrealistic expectations. I just don't want anyone to get worked up when 4G doesn't come along and make them see Jesus or something.

Thank you bemis23 for the thoughtful posts you have made here today and welcome to the EVO 4G forum. It's nice to have people around that know what they're talking about and I would definitely put you in that group. Another person that has a good handle on WiMAX and LTE is RiverOfIce, who's post you disagreed with earlier. Is it possible that you both could be right on the WiFi subject? If not, I would be interested in what you have to say about the post he made yesterday and also his first post in this forum.

Thanks again,

Bill

 

[nx25]

If you don't the fundamental differences of operating in licensed versus unlicensed spectrums I'm seriously doubting the credibility of your "i'm designing it" statement.

WHOA WHOA, gloves down people. We're here to talk EVO and learn. Take the WiMax debate to the WiMax section.

 

[RiverOfIce]

Umm, ok I've bit my tongue on other things, but this is really bugging me and I've seen it multiple time: WiFi is NOT WiMax.

Hey you know best. I only help design the damn thing, but you are a user you know best. Have fun. I am done here. WIfI is lan, local area network Wimax is man, Municaple area network. Wimax is wifi on steroids. It is not 4g.

 

[billsmed]

If you don't the fundamental differences of operating in licensed versus unlicensed spectrums I'm seriously doubting the credibility of your "i'm designing it" statement.

Oops!!! Please read some of River's posts. When you do, I think you'll have to agree that he knows what he's talking about. I was hoping the two of you would get together, because I enjoy reading what both of you have to say.

 

[awayne]

This is also generally true, although nitpicking your specific examples aren't quite correct. Assuming that you are operating a fairly old desktop computer that still interfaces with an NIC (netowrk interface card) via the PCI bus/slot (not PCI-x) you'd have a data throughput to the processor of ~125MBps which roughly translates to 1000Mbps or 166 times as fast as a "typical" 6Mbps internet connection. Compared to a SATA 3.0 standard compliant 3.0GBps read/write speed on a modern hard drive and the hard drives read/write speed is roughly 4,096 times as fast as a "typical" 6Mbps internet connection - neither of these speeds include data overhead either, it's just raw bandwidth available.

I don't have data available at my fingertips for the standards and buses used for internal data transfer in smartphones (that data is probably proprietary and competition sensitive for each manufacturer), but I'd be guess that based on power/size requirements we're probably talking about bus speeds between the radios<->processor<->memory of maybe 150-200MBps (possible margin of error here is 1000% - there's really no way for me to know for sure), again - well above what the radios can pull in out of the air. Think about it the other way: how poorly would you have to engineer a system to transfer data faster externally than it can internally process those data streams?

The biggest bottleneck is going to be long distance data transfer for the foreseeable future, but you are correct in that we need to be able to handle the amount of data we're receiving efficiently or the technological increases won't be useful. The good news, is that the same types of innovations we get in our phones are tangentially related to the technological advances in upgrading the backhaul of the telecommunications network which - in turn - enhances broadcast bandwidth available per user.

Regardless of what the actual NIC card can process, if the computer is slow and can't process the data coming in it still doesn't matter how fast the data truly is.... I could have gone into more detail in my original post but I didn't feel it is needed. Point is to get everything out of your data connection the equipment must be able to process it. The same goes for our phones just like computers. I mean we are into the 1ghz+ processors for cell phones when not too long ago we made that benchmark on computers.

 

[Self Praise]

Hey you know best. I only help design the damn thing, but you are a user you know best. Have fun. I am done here. WIfI is lan, local area network Wimax is man, Municaple area network. Wimax is wifi on steroids. It is not 4g.

WiMax (802.16e) is a newer standard of wireless networking designed to provide the last mile of high speed internet access to the end user. Some people would call Wimax WiFi on steroids but this would be to broad of an assessment. Wifi was and still will be used in LAN environments for the foreseeable future. WiMax was designed to provide (MAN) Metropolitan Area Access, to homes and businesses.

I'm not trying to argue with anyone in here, especially with someone who only try to help better this section, but WiMax and WiFi are two separate technologies that's similar in nature, but very far apart. WiMax is not WiFi.

 

[Android 17]

Oops!!! Please read some of River's posts. When you do, I think you'll have to agree that he knows what he's talking about. I was hoping the two of you would get together, because I enjoy reading what both of you have to say.

I've also enjoyed reading both of your posts, so if you can, try to get along and keep informing those posessing lesser knowledge and experience and such matters.

Don't leave simply because of a disagreement, as that would be a shame for myself and many other forum members here whom genuinely find both of your posts intriguing and thoughtful.

Perhaps both of you can PM each other and try to sort it out civilly?

Thanks.

 

[bemis23]

Thank you bemis23 for the thoughtful posts you have made here today and welcome to the EVO 4G forum. It's nice to have people around that know what they're talking about and I would definitely put you in that group. Another person that has a good handle on WiMAX and LTE is RiverOfIce, who's post you disagreed with earlier. Is it possible that you both could be right on the WiFi subject? If not, I would be interested in what you have to say about the post he made yesterday and also his first post in this forum.

Thanks again,

Bill

His first post is sound from a technological perspective - whether or not municpalities will ever make the infrastructure investments and or let the service contracts for the utopian world he discribed is a bit iffier, although it is happening already in some places, especially outside the US so I wouldn't bet against him.

As far as the Wifi/Wimax debate - it's more a matter of semantics than anything else. The authentication protocols are similar, although not an exact match, and the basic network layout is similar. WiMax is similar to Wifi in that regard. However, the use of licensed versus unlicensed frequencies is beyond simply a semantic difference.

Unlicensed spectrum devices are limited by the FCC to be a low-power device that won't interfere with other devices (hence the little warning stickers you see on just about every piece of electronics about not causing interference and accepting any caused interference). Licensed spectrum can use high-power transmissions to blanket an area with coverage but only in certain broadcast rnages (e.g 700mhz-1.4ghz).

The cordless phones / cellular phone analogy is the best I've seen, although it's not all encompassing. It may be theoretically possible to use licensed spectrum WiMax (which differs subtly from the unlicsenced spectrum WiMax available for home-networking - not in the protocol, but in the equipment used) to function as a quasi-lan through the use of IPv6 addressing (another topic entirely), but we're not anywhere close to that yet.

Functionally the biggest difference is your LAN (802.11x) is fully under your control. You own and set the parameters for communication/security/logs/QoS in the router and all of your devices.

The WiMax tower essentially acts as the router in a LAN and is not under your control, ever. Your phone, tablet pc, parking meter, whatever would just be a device (e.g. your pc) on the network. The biggest area of concern, for me, is obviously security - encryption scheme and bit-strength have to be balanced against data bandwidth avilable to transmit encrypted information (which is often many times larger than the original set of data). Sprint/Clear obviously have a legal duty to safeguard your information within reason - but I'm not sure what they or the courts would consider within reason, and I tend to be a paranoid worrywart given that I haven't seen what encryption algorithim and bit-strength is being deployed.

So like I was saying it's more of a semantic difference than anything else - but at the technical level those semantics have very big implications on the functionality of the technology. I would say that the number of people who actually care about those differences is probably about 1-2% of the population. I just happen to be one of them.

Edit: typos

 

[billsmed]

Thank you bemis23. I can't argue with anything you just said, mostly because I'm not that technical when it comes to WiFi, LTE and WiMAX, but obviously you and RiverOfIce both are. I think it's wonderful having you guys here, so I hope you can get together. Someone already suggested that you two PM each other. That might work and if it does, the rest of us will benefit from whatever comes out of it. I like having both of you here.

 

[bemis23]

Regardless of what the actual NIC card can process, if the computer is slow and can't process the data coming in it still doesn't matter how fast the data truly is.... I could have gone into more detail in my original post but I didn't feel it is needed. Point is to get everything out of your data connection the equipment must be able to process it. The same goes for our phones just like computers. I mean we are into the 1ghz+ processors for cell phones when not too long ago we made that benchmark on computers.

Let's just agree on the bold part

 

[Capboomer]

Hey you know best. I only help design the damn thing, but you are a user you know best. Have fun. I am done here.

R.O.I...don't sweat the small stuff...we are on your side

 

[ImGreen]

Regardless of what the actual NIC card can process, if the computer is slow and can't process the data coming in it still doesn't matter how fast the data truly is.... I could have gone into more detail in my original post but I didn't feel it is needed. Point is to get everything out of your data connection the equipment must be able to process it. The same goes for our phones just like computers. I mean we are into the 1ghz+ processors for cell phones when not too long ago we made that benchmark on computers.

awayne, I get your point... I actually have an old PC and have proven your point at my own house. My "old" PC has a 1GHz PIII; not very efficient for web browsing compared to my Core2Quad PC.

 

[nx25]

You're another one that knows their stuff and you and bemis23 seem to be on the same page. If I'm understanding your question correctly, bemis and I were talking about RiverOfIce, who I also think knows his stuff, but he isn't quite on the same page as you two are.

It's funny cause the bulk of the people here probably can't tell the difference in the arguments. They're all saying WiMax isn't WiFi, but some think it's completely different and the contrary thinks it's only slightly different? Either way, it went right over our heads.

 

[dandm4life]

It's funny cause the bulk of the people here probably can't tell the difference in the arguments. They're all saying WiMax isn't WiFi, but some think it's completely different and the contrary thinks it's only slightly different? Either way, it went right over our heads.

I dont read long posts so i've pretty much missed the argument

I'm sure i would get it if i tried, but i really dont care to try. As long as my Evo is faster than my pre, I'll be happy.

 

[bemis23]

Then there are some who think this dicussion you three are having should go into it's own topic, I agree it is 4G related but has little to no link to the Evo. I think it's really derailing the topic at hand. I believe a few others have said the same a few pages back.

Honestly, I don't care that much. Bottom line: read whoever you want and believe whatever you want. For nearly everyone it's all going to boil down to what dandm4life said: "As long as my Evo is faster than my pre, I'll be happy. "

Adios, I'm going back to lurking.

 

[nullspace]

If you've noticed an error I made I'm intersted in hearing it. thus far I'm not reading anything that we disagree on though. Perhaps I took this statement the wrong way?

I appreciate all of the technical discussion even though this isn't a WiMAX or LTE thread.

I've learned so much about WiMAX, LTE, telecommunications and where the future might be headed just reading this thread.

I hope all of you knowledgeable people stick around and continue to contribute information. I find it very intriguing and informative. It also helps me see what possibilities that EVO will have as well as some of it's limitations.

Please keep the info coming. (I suppose I should start reading some WiMAX threads too)

 

[RiverOfIce]

Licensed spectrum can use high-power transmissions to blanket an area with coverage but only in certain broadcast rnages (e.g 700mhz-1.4ghz).

Ok, I was done until that.


It is clear from that statement you do not even know what spectrum Wifi operates at.

It is also clear that you have no idea what is require for licensed spectrum.

Wifi is 2.4 ghz. Very Very high power.

Wimax is 2.5ghz.

Wait...you said...oh.

Bottom line, regardless of specs and ideas. Installing and using wimax is very, very, very, close to installing and using wifi.

This is what I was saying. They both face the same issues for installing and using.

Both of them are made to provide wireless broadband connection. Not a mobile data connection.

Which makes wimax more silimar to wifi then 3g. Of course you know best.

You problems with your connection is like using starbuck free wifi and stating that is how all wifi is.

I am not a fan of clear, never well be.

But you fall into the fallacy that if you connection says 100mbps, and you get 10mbps. IT HAS TO BE THE CARD/SERVICE. Not the host server. Not the traffic.

You speak on things you can not even begin to understand.

Ethernet guy! They are all Broadband Wireless Access standards, so they are not the same product, but are very close family members. Wimax offers the same type of connection that wifi does, but over miles and not feet.

I am sorry but I am done with this thread. If you guys want your "info" get it from licensed spectrum (700mhz-1.4ghz) guy. lol

 

[TECHMAN]

Right. Cause there's so much awesome new info to talk about with the Evo on a daily basis.

Well then in the meantime give us your thoughts on how wimax will translate to the evo. I think we all need more clarification as to what our expectations are at this point.

I for one, expect decent speeds and spectrum so it may replace my home comcast modem. This is now in dispute

Can you contribute in a way that we can discuss?

 

[bemis23]

Ok, I was done until that.


It is clear from that statement you do not even know what spectrum Wifi operates at.

It is also clear that you have no idea what is require for licensed spectrum.

Wifi is 2.4 ghz. Very Very high power.

Wimax is 2.5ghz.

Wait...you said...oh.

Bottom line, regardless of specs and ideas. Installing and using wimax is very, very, very, close to installing and using wifi.

This is what I was saying. They both face the same issues for installing and using.

Both of them are made to provide wireless broadband connection. Not a mobile data connection.

Which makes wimax more silimar to wifi then 3g. Of course you know best.

You problems with your connection is like using starbuck free wifi and stating that is how all wifi is.

I am not a fan of clear, never well be.

But you fall into the fallacy that if you connection says 100mbps, and you get 10mbps. IT HAS TO BE THE CARD/SERVICE. Not the host server. Not the traffic.

You speak on things you can not even begin to understand.

Ethernet guy! They are all Broadband Wireless Access standards, so they are not the same product, but are very close family members. Wimax offers the same type of connection that wifi does, but over miles and not feet.

I am sorry but I am done with this thread. If you guys want your "info" get it from licensed spectrum (700mhz-1.4ghz) guy. lol

*flamesuit on*

Sorry, but this just takes the cake. I will not be insulted by a moron.

1) 700mhz-1.4ghz was an example of a licensed broadcast range (as a matter of fact it was the one most frequently auctioned)
2) If you do not understand the difference between wavelength and amplitude you are a freaking idiot and your credibility is utterly ruined as a "designer of WiMax". Stop pretending to be such.
3) Installing/usage is not the same as underlying technology.
4) Licensed/unlicensed spectrum broadcast ranges are defined by the FCC - not whatever the hell you think it is
5) As for the rest of the readers: If you take technical advice from RiverofIce you might want to get a 2nd opinion.

I'm done, peace out.

 

[nx25]

*flamesuit on*

Sorry, but this just takes the cake. I will not be insulted by a moron.

1) 700mhz-1.4ghz was an example of a licensed broadcast range (as a matter of fact it was the one most frequently auctioned)
2) If you do not understand the difference between wavelength and amplitude you are a freaking idiot and your credibility is utterly ruined as a "designer of WiMax". Stop pretending to be such.
3) Installing/usage is not the same as underlying technology.
4) Licensed/unlicensed spectrum broadcast ranges are defined by the FCC - not whatever the hell you think it is
5) As for the rest of the readers: If you take technical advice from RiverofIce you might want to get a 2nd opinion.

I'm done, peace out.

I thought you were done awhile ago..??

 

[andiron]

Wow guys....put away the guns already. Seriously...the information is getting lost in the delivery. A good pissing match might be satisfying as it's happening but overall it's just destructive to the morale and the sense of community here.

If you're really a smart guy....and I aim this at no one in particular....then show it by exercising some diplomacy. Everyone hates a bully. Just because your a tech God doesn't mean you get to rape pillage a plunder and lord it over other people. Sure, you may feel superior by showing off your knowledge....but what you really show is that your woefully lacking when it comes to an emotional IQ. What's next....you gonna prove how GREAT you are by arm wrestling your Grandma? I've known some really smart guys...some real "Mr. Wizards"....and what amazes me is that some of them are so stupid when it comes to social interaction.

Simply put: No one...whether they are right or wrong likes to be humiliated in public. It's not the message...it's how it's delivered. Feeling superior and acting in an aggressive and mean fashion negates anything you might think is so great about yourself. Show some humility and try to add to this forum in a way that is both friendly and benevolent. After all...if your so damned smart....then you can choose to be nice and help out...or be an ass and alienate everyone around you. Okay...that's my rant....just can't stand mean arrogant buttholes who feel entitled to pick on others just because they have knowledge about the subject at hand.

Okay...I'm gonna crawl back in my hole and lurk...and think about what color of case I want for my EVO! Peace...out!