WiMAX and the city

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2008/5/15/technology/1209642&sec=technology
PETALING JAYA: Internet surfers will have to put up with the 512Kbps maximum speed of the KL Wireless Metropolitan Project now until most of the 3,500 designated hotspots are active.

Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd (P1), one of the four WiMAX ­licensees charged with rolling out wireless broadband service in the country, expects the wait to be about two years.

Currently, 200 hotspots have been activated and most of these are in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) area.

P1 chief executive officer Michael Lai said another 1,300 hotpots in the city would be added by year-end, and the remainder by 2010.

“There will be options to upgrade the speed in the future and in the meantime it’s a free service,” he told In.Tech early this week.

Theoretically, WiMAX speeds can hit 70Mbps.

Connectivity fees will only be charged from 2010, said Lai.

512Kbps (kilobytes per second) is slow when compared to fixed-line broadband speeds offered by TM Net, which go as high as 4Mbps (megabits per second) now. But it is better than dial-up speeds which are typically 56Kbps — the service used by most Malaysians at this time.

Another benefit of wireless broadband is that Internet surfers can roam the city and remain connected.

Lai said P1 has also had to tweak its WiMAX 2.3GHz infrastructure so that it can be used by devices built for WiFi access. WiFi and WiMAX are different technologies that work the same way; with WiMAX having the greater range.

“This has to be done because there are currently no WiMAX-enabled devices available for consumers,” he said. “These devices will likely start showing up in the market in the latter part of the year.”

It will also take some time for the devices to gain critical mass among Internet users in the country, enough to make it worthwhile for P1 to switch back to a fully WiMAX network.

The KL Wireless Metropolitan Project was launched on Monday by Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Zulhasnan Rafique at KL City Hall.

Internet users who want to start using the service will need to first register at www.wirelesskl.com.

Accountant Farina Mohamed Jamal, 26, believes she will enjoy this new connectivity option. “Free Internet access even at 512Kbps is great, especially when you can now surf from anywhere in the city,” she said.

A helpdesk consultant, Azri Samad, 32, was also pleased with the new service but wonders if 512Kbps is going to be enough since the service will likely attract a lot of interest.

“It is free surfing but the ­bandwidth is going to be shared by tens of thousands of Internet users in the city,” he said.

Both hoped that the connectivity fee, when introduced, would be reasonable if not downright ­affordable.