What factors will most greatly affect range for WiMAX products?
Many factors affect range for any broadband wireless product. Some
factors include the terrain and density/height of tree cover. Hills and
valleys can block or partially reflect signals. Bodies of water such as
rivers and lakes are highly reflective of RF transmissions. Fortunately
OFDM can often turn this to an advantage---but not always. The RF shadow
of large buildings can create dead spots directly behind them, particularly if
license-free spectrums are being used (with their attendant lower power
allotments). How busy the RF environment of a city or town is can greatly
degrade signals---meaning that properly designed and well thought out networks
are always desired. The physics of radio transmission dictate that the
greater the range between the base station and customer radio, the lower the
amount of bandwidth that can be delivered, even in an extremely well-designed
network. The climate can affect radio performance---despite this there are
ubiquitous wireless networks deployed today with great success in frozen Alaskan
oil fields as well as lush South American and Asian climates. And
increasingly WiMAX radio antenna technology coupled with the inherent advantages
of OFDM/OFDMA based radios can be a major factor in range and bandwidth
capability. The new multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and adaptive
antenna systems (AAS) based antenna systems promise to maintain and even link
connection and link budgets with much higher bandwidth than older technology.
No two cities are exactly alike in terms of the challenges and opportunities
presented. In many respects, broadband wireless remains very much an art
form. However, this is also true for the cellular carriers most of us use
daily. It can be done quite well. Mobile broadband wireless will be
more difficult. Achieving high quality of service (QOS) will be easier
with fixed broadband wireless. Despite all of these challenges, current
broadband wireless is very effectively serving customers even in the most
challenging environments.
