Watching Youtube.com is a simple online activity. But this was a concert, the connection was wireless and the group was on the move.
That the concert ran smoothly was the most surprising thing….. The Nation's Asina Pornwasin reports on the introduction of the world's first commercial 4G WiMax service in Taipei, Taiwan.
People in Taipei City can now enjoy surfing the Internet with a high-speed connection while they are on the move.
Taiwanese WiMax provider VMax Telecom has kicked off its first commercial mobile-WiMax service - effectively, the world's first 4G WiMax service. The name stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. It enables people in Taipei who are moving about to remain online, with high-speed access, as smoothly as if they were sitting in front of a home PC with a fixed broadband connection.
Vmax Telecom is a joint-venture company between Tecom, 3G operator Vibo Telecom, Intel Capital and the North Taiwan WiMax operator, Teco Group.
The company's new service aims to turn Taipei into a "4G WiMax City" - a city that is totally connected by a high-speed wireless service.
With a network of more than 200 base stations covering at least 85 per cent of the city's population, Vmax Telecom offers 4G WiMax cards for desktops and laptops with a limited-promotion monthly subscription, offering a 4Mbps/2Mbps download/upload bandwidth.
The company has also launched a WiMax service in taxis called the "VMax Mobile Internet Cafe' service. Taxis have been equipped with touch-screen mobile Internet devices - small, flat devices with a 7-inch touch screen operated with a stylus, with embedded WiMax and global positioning system (GPS) chips and using Microsoft's Windows CE 5.0 operating system. These are attached to the back of taxis' front passenger seats to provide high-speed Internet access, Web TV, local information, mobile games and GPS services for passengers, free of charge.
The devices have already been installed in 1,000 Taipei taxis and will spread to 6,000 taxis by the end of this year. They offers taxi passengers an enjoyable ride during which they can watch movies, check daily information or play games free of charge, said Vmax Telecom chairman Teddy Huang.
The vice president of Intel Architecture Group and director of the WiMax Program Office at Intel Corporation, Rama Shukla, said that WiMax was "changing the game", and was the best choice for offering fast mobile-broadband services. Given WiMax's ecosystem, Intel believes it will become the mainstream of mobile-broadband communication.
As a major driver in the support and development of WiMax, Intel has designed an embedded WiMax solution for a variety of mobile devices to support the future of high-speed mobile broadband on-the-go. It is called the Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMax 6250. It is an IEEE 802.16e and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless multiband network adapter that delivers up to 20 Megabits per second for downlink and up to 6 Mbps for uplink.
"This integrated module, embedded in Intel technology notebooks and netbooks, provides flexible and convenient connectivity to both WiMax and Wi-Fi networks. We believe that WiMax will play an important role in wireless connection, the same as that already played by Wi-Fi. Today, there are no notebook computers without Wi-Fi connections. We expect the same thing will happen with WiMax in the not-too-distant future," Shukla said.
He said about 11 major PC and notebook manufacturers, including Fujitsu, Dell, Panasonic, Sony, Acer, Asus, MSI and Lenovo, were committed to launching notebooks and netbooks embedded with WiMax this year.
WiMax connections will not end with notebook PCs. Shukla said Intel was developing a new generation of WiMax products codenamed Evan Peak, that were based on WiMax IEEE 802.16m standard. It is expected their commercial deployment will begin in 2012. Evan Peak products are designed and developed for handsets, smart phones and consumer electronics such as gaming devices, cameras, camcorders, and music players.
"The advantage of WiMax when compared to 3G is that it is 2.5 times faster. It is also cost effective as a business model. We expect there will be 1 billion 'connected mobile clients' within five years," he said.
Taiwan's VMax Telecom is a pioneer provider of commercial mobile-WiMax services. Currently, more than 500 WiMax services are deployed in 147 countries around the world. They include CLEAR in the United States; WBS iBurst Service in South Africa; Aria Italy in Italy; DBD Deutsche Breitband Dienste in Germany; Imagine in Ireland; Globe Telecom in the Philippines, Comstar and Yota in Russia; Packet 1 Networks in Malaysia; Tatung InfoComm in Taiwan; and UQ Communications in Japan.
More than 330 cities in more than 80 countries are planning commercial mobile-WiMax networks. That Taipei is the first to launch such a network indicates the attention given by the Taiwanese government to the availability of WiMax licences. The government in Taiwan has also selected WiMax for its M-Taiwan national programme, which seeks to build "a brave new mobile world" on the island. It has already invested more than US$1 billion (Bt32.7 billion) in developing a network infrastructure. Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau says that by 2012, Taiwan will have invested about $3 billion in the WiMax industry.
