wifi wimax diff

8/6/2019 Wifi Wimax Diff

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Wimax uses IEEE 802.16 standard and provides the last mile of (MAN)

Metropolitan Area high speed internet access , so it is often called

802.16, as compared to 802.11

WiMax was created by the WiMax Forum , which was formed in June

2001 to promote the adoption of WiMax compatible products and

services.

Although WiMax deployments are similar to a WiFi network, it has a few

advantages over WiFi .

1. WiMax has the capability of covering wider areas than WiFi. While

WiFi is a Wireless LAN networking technology, it can only reach a few

hundred meters in the open air, WiMax is designed to be a MAN

wireless internet access technology, it can cover an area of some 50

miles in diameter.

2. WiMax provides a higher speed wireless internet access . Wimax canbe running at a speed up to 70M, three times as fast as 3G networks.

3. WiMax provides the last mile of internet access; it can connect WiFi

hotspots to the Internet. And provide a wireless alternative to cables and

DSL.

4. WiMax provides multi-media and telecommunications services, it is

securer and can be upgraded.

Now while WiMax are becoming popular in EU countries and the North

America, Asia, is also introducing WiMax technology as well . The goal

for the long term evolution of WiMAX is to achieve 100 Mbit/s mobile and

1 Gbit/s fixed-nomadic bandwidth and can be expected to be one of the

most widely used wireless internet access technologies in the future.
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Of the different wireless technologies, when should I use WLANs, Wi-Fi andWiMax? Also, what are the primary differences between Wi-Fi and WLAN?Wi-Fi products are used to build WLANs, while WiMAX products are used to

build WMANs.

A Wireless Local Area Network ( WLAN ) is a group of devices linkedtogether by wireless within a relatively small space like a single office buildingor home. Three WLAN technologies were included in the original 802.11 standard: Infrared , Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum ( FHSS ), and DirectSequence Spread Spectrum ( DSSS ). 802.11b focused exclusively on DSSS;802.11a/g/n also used Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing ( OFDM ).

Wi-Fi is a certification applied to 802.11a/b/g/n products tested by the Wi-FiAlliance, an industry consortium that promotes interoperability inheterogeneous WLANs. For example, all 802.11g products implement standardOFDM and DSSS, but only Wi-Fi certified products have proven that theycorrectly support a mandatory subset of features and options.

To create a WLAN, enterprises, small businesses, and home owners can purchase Wi-Fi certified Access Points ( APs) and clients (laptops, phones, printers). Clients must be no more than a few hundred feet from the closest AP.Larger buildings can be covered by installing multiple APs that are connected toeach other. Most WLANs are deployed indoors, but WLANs can also cover

parking lots or courtyards or other local outdoor areas.

Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks ( WMAN s) use wireless "last mile"technologies to connect subscriber stations (customer premise equipment) to

base stations (carrier network infrastructure), providing a wireless alternative towireline Internet access technologies like DSL, cable, or fiber.

802.16 standards define several WMAN technologies that operate at variousfrequencies, distances, and speeds to deliver Broadband Wireless Access(BWA). The original 802.16 focused on Fixed BWA, using point to pointwireless uplinks to connect subscriber networks to carrier networks and theInternet. More recently, the 802.16e amendment defined Mobile BWA to servesubscriber stations that are not fixed in place, like laptops used in cars andtrains.

WiMax is a certification applied to 802.16 products tested by the WiMAXForum. Carriers build and operate WMANs by purchasing licensed spectrumand then deploying WiMAX base stations throughout a city, region, or other designated coverage area. To use the WMAN, subscribers must purchasewireless services from a carrier. For example, Sprint recently launched acommercial WiMAX service called XOHM in Baltimore. Consumers in and
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around Baltimore that want to use XOHM must purchase a compatible WiMAXdevice and pay Sprint for air time.

Here are some key differences between WLANs and WMANs, supported by

Wi-Fi and WiMAX products: It's possible to use WMAN technology indoors, but 802.16 protocols are

optimized for outdoor operation. It's possible to use WLAN technologyoutside, but 802.11 protocols were primarily designed for indoor networks.

Larger WLANs can be constructed using many densely-spaced Wi-FiAPs, but to blanket miles of territory with wireless, you really want tocreate a WMAN technology. On the other hand, using WiMAX productsfor communication between PCs inside the same building would be

pricey and impractical -- that's precisely what WLAN technologies werecreated for.

Most office and home WLANs are composed of Wi-Fi productsoperating in unlicensed spectrum -- channels freely available for use byanyone. WiMAX products most often operate in spectrum licensed towireless carriers who use them to deliver commercial BWA services.

For nuts-and-bolts differences, check out Michael Finneran's excellent paper onWiMax versus Wi-Fi .

The bottom line is that WLANs and WMANs are complementary network architectures, supported by standard technologies that were designed for verydifferent environments and purposes. This is why your next laptop may wellinclude both Wi-Fi and Mobile WiMAX adapters. Use the Wi-Fi adapter toconnect to your office or home WLAN free-of-charge, but use the WiMAXadapter when you're on the go to reach the Internet through a carrier's WMAN.

What is the difference between Wi-Fi and Wi-max?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
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WiMax is designed for building a network infrastructure when the environmentor distance is not favorable to a wired network. Also, WiMax is a cheaper andquicker alternative than having to lay wire. Third world countries will greatly

benefit from deploying WiMax networks. WiMax can handle virtually all the

same protocols Wifi can including VOIP. African countries are now going tostart deploying WiMax networks instead of cell phone networks. Disaster zonescan also utilize WiMax giving them the ability to distribute crisis informationquickly and cheaply.

In fact WiFi (technically standard 802.11) and WiMAX (802.16) don'tcompete for broadband users or applications today. That's partly becauseWiFi is widely deployed and WiMAX is still largely an unfulfilled

promise and partly because the two protocols were designed for verydifferent situations. However, if WiMAX is eventually widely deployed,there will be competition between them as last mile technologies.

Some people describe the difference between WiFi and WiMAX asanalogous to the difference between a cordless phone and a mobile

phone. Wifi, like a cordless phone, is primarily used to provide aconnection within a limited area like a home or an office. WiMAX isused (or planned to be used) to provide broadband connectivity fromsome central location to most locations inside or outside within its serviceradius as well as to people passing through in cars. Just like mobile phoneservice, there are likely to be WiMAX dead spots within buildings.

From a techie POV, the analogy is apt at another level: WiFi, likecordless phones, operates in unlicensed spectrum (in fact cordless phonesand WiFi can interfere with each other in the pitiful swatch of spectrumthat's been allocated to them). There are some implementations of WiMAX for unlicensed spectrum but most WiMAX development has

been done on radios which operate on frequencies whose use requires alicense.

Some more subversive types (they're subversive so I can't link to them)say that WiMAX is what you get when bellheads (not a nice term) try toreinvent WiFi the way they'd like it to be. It's true that WiMAX is muchmore a command and control protocol than WiFi. Oversimplified, in aWiFi environment every device within reach of an access point shouts for attention whenever it's got something to transmit. In that chaos, some

signals tromp on other signals; the more powerful devices and thosecloser to the access point tend to get more than their share of airtime like


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the obnoxious kid who always has his hand up in the front of the class. InWiMAX devices contend for initial attention but then are assigned timeswhen they may ask to speak. The protocol allows the operator morecontrol over the quality of service providedbellheads like control.

But it's not clear that more control means better service than contentiouschaos (I'm talking about technology but the same may apply to economiesor bodies politic). The Internet and its routing algorithms are chaotic; therouters just throw away packets if they get to busy to handle them.Bellheads (and even smart people like Bob Metcalfe) were sure thatdesign or lack thereof wouldn't scale. They were wrong.

Same people said that voice would never work over the Internetthere's

no guarantee of quality, you see. They were wrong although it's takenawhile to prove it. Now HD voice is available on the Internet but NOT onthe traditional phone network (although it could be).

Lovers of an orderly environment and those who like to keep order wereabsolutely sure that WiFi couldn't work once it became popular. Not onlyis it chaotic; it also operates in the uncontrolled environment of unlicensed frequencies along with cordless phones, bluetooth headsets,walkie-talkies and the occasional leaky microwave oven. But somehowit's become near indispensable even in places where a city block full of access points contend for the scarce frequencies.

Net: I'm not convinced that WiMAX won't suffer from its ownorderliness. Did you ever fume leaving an event when an amateur cop (or a professional one) managed traffic into an endless snarl? Fact is cars atlow speed usually merge better without help than otherwise. Turns outthat control comes at the expense of wasted capacity. The reason that theInternet or WiFi radios can work is that the computing power necessaryto deal with chaos from the edge of the network is far cheaper and lesssubject to disruption or misallocation than the computing power (andcommunication) for central command and control.

WiMAX may be too well-controlled for its own good. Moreover, if it isused only in regulated spectrum where most frequencies are idle most of the time AND licenses for the frequencies have to be purchased, it will beeven less efficient than if it could contend for unlicensed spectrum.

By the way, WiFi CAN operate at distances as great as WiMAX but there

are two reasons why it doesn't. One reason is that radios operating in theunlicensed frequencies are not allowed to be as powerful as those


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operated with licenses; less power means less distance. These regulationsare based on the dated assumption that devices can't regulate themselves

but the assumption MAY be correct over great enough distances. Thesecond reason why WiFi access points don't serve as wide an area as

WiMAX access points are planned to do is the engineering belief that the problem of everybody shouting at once, even if it's surmountable in aclassroom, would be catastrophic in

What are the differences and similarities between Wi-Fi and WiMAX?

Wi-Fi and WiMAX were developed for different markets and differentapplications.The technologies can complement each other with WiMAX to the building andWi-Fi in the building. WiMAX can also be used to replace or supplementcopper or cable. Developing countries stand to benefit from WiMAX's lower infrastructure cost.

Main WiMAX Applications1)Dedicated point-to-point fixed service using outdoor antennas to deliver ratesof up to 100 Mbps. Many such networks have been deployed based on the

original 802.16 Standard using frequencies between 10 - 66 GHz. Thesesystems require line-of-sight (LOS) and are typically used for corporate datanetworks networks or backhaul of cellular traffic;2)Point-to-multi-point service provided by networks based on the 802.16a 2003or the 802.16d 2004 Standards using frequencies between 2 - 11 GHz in non-line-of-sight applications. This service can used to deliver wireless DSL atspeeds comparable to fixed DSL (or cable) i.e. 512 Kbps to 2-3 Mbps. The keyto this application is the availability of inexpensive non-line-of-sight (NLOS)customer premises equipment (CPE) that can be self-installed;

3)Mobile/nomadic applications using the 802.16e mobile WiMAX Standard atfrequencies below 6 GHz. This application is in direct competition with the dataservices provided by the 2G/3G cellular network operators. Consumers want

broadband Internet connectivity. The WiMAX network is optimized for IPconnectivity and should be able to provide a better service at a lower cost.WiMAX networks can deliver good VOIP quality and if this service becomes

popular it will threaten the core voice business of cellular network operators.

Main Characteristics of Wi-Fi1)Wi-Fi is designed as a wireless extension to local area networks (LAN) for


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indoor use with a range up to 100m;2)Wi-Fi was developed as consumer product. There may be interference due towidespread deployment of Wi-Fi but the limited range of the Wi-Fi equipmentalleviates this problem;

3)Wi-Fi operates exclusively in the Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) bands(2.4 GHZ and 5.8 GHZ) and in almost all countries a license is not required.One reason for the success of Wi-Fi was the use initially of 2.4 GHz bandworldwide with later standards adding the 5.8 GHz band.

Main Characteristics of WiMAX1)WiMAX was originally designed to provide fixed BWA in metropolitan areanetworks (MAN) with a range of up to 50 km. Extensions of the WiMAXstandard now provide for mobile applications with a range of up to 6 km;

2)WiMAX was developed as a commercial product for use by network operators. In the licensed bands there will be few operators and the interferenceenvironment can be controlled;3)WiMAX can operate over a wide range of frequencies including both licensedand unlicensed bands. Due to its longer range, it makes more sense for mostapplications to operate in licensed bands;

Of the different wireless technologies, when should I use WLANs, Wi-Fi andWiMax? Also, what are the primary differences between Wi-Fi and WLAN?Wi-Fi products are used to build WLANs, while WiMAX products are used to

build WMANs.

A Wireless Local Area Network ( WLAN ) is a group of devices linkedtogether by wireless within a relatively small space like a single office buildingor home. Three WLAN technologies were included in the original 802.11 standard: Infrared , Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum ( FHSS ), and DirectSequence Spread Spectrum ( DSSS ). 802.11b focused exclusively on DSSS;802.11a/g/n also used Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing ( OFDM

The differences are pretty wide, both in terms of technology and targetmarket.

WiFi is basically wireless LAN technology. It's built for small-scale local networking, and works around the 802.11 protocol
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standards.

WiMax is a wireless MAN (Metro Area Network) technologydesigned to supplant or supplement copper and fiber for last-mile applications (i.e. providing that last service link betweenthe ISP/telco's switches and your house). It's built for far largerapplications, and works around the 802.16 protocol standards.

Whereas WiFi typically covers a few hundred feet (more if youbelieve the hyperbolic "optimal" claims of 802.11n marketers,but I wouldn't), WiMax is designed to work over distancesmeasured in miles (claims of 30 have been bandied around, but4 is a more realistic number). Range differs between line-of-sight WiMax transmitters and non-line-of-sight transmitters(which operate more like WiFi transmitters).

Unlike WiFi transceivers, WiMax units are typically equippedwith the ability to judge when they are nearing capacity, andshift users to another nearby WiMax unit, theoretically avoidingoverloads and speed reductions (until you hit the system's maxload, I presume). WiMax can also accommodate both mobileand fixed users.

"Think of a WiMax network as an ISP with out wires, with thesignal providing your internet access to your business/ home.Wifi will be used within in your LAN for the near future."

Wikipedia's bottom-line comparison is similar, but a bit morepithy. Basically, if you think of WiMax like a cellphone (mobile,long-range, does not rely on a central location), the WiFi ismore like a cordless phone (mobile, short range, relies on acentral station.
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Wi-Fi 802.11 veritiy is limited in range to about 240 feet (out doors) WiMaxis upto 70 miles (corn fields)

The biggest difference between WiFi and WiMax is thedistance. WiFi can only broadcast (and receive from units

relativity close to the unit). This means it is perfect for a homeunit, but when a city wants to install a network it needshundreds or thousands of "repeaters", these units are verysmall and fairly cheap and tend to be placed on existing streetlights. Using the existing infrastructure and power supply thisis an easy and quick install.

WiMax on the other hand requires much fewer units because of its greater distance, but the units are much more experniveand required a much larger foot print than a light pole.Currently these units in cities are being installed on existingcellular towers, since they already have the data handlingabilities needed.

When it place WiMax will most likely be paying customers thatdo not have access to the "last mile" for high speed data, suchas cable or DSL, or do not want to use these services.Currently Chicago is installing both systems a free and low costWIFI network and a commercial WiMax network, bothcompanies AT&T for wifi and Sprint for WiMax do not see theseas competition, because they believe they are two separatemarkets.

Scope.At one level we say theyre different because WiFi is IEEE802.11 and WiMAX is IEEE 802.16. Theyre different parts of theIEEE networking standards (IEEE 802.anything is a local ormetropolitan-level anything).


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At a physical level, WiFi and WiMAX both use OFDM (orthogonalfrequency division multiplexing) to encode data, and they areboth wireless data networking standards but the similaritiesend there:

WiFi takes place in unlicensed spectrum, is low-power, andis designed for ad-hoc and local area networking. WiFi"cells" are small, limited to a building or a campus, givenenough access points.

WiMAX is a service provider technology and will uselicensed spectrum. IEEE 802.16 itself describes fixedpoint-to-point connections, but 802.16e introducesmobility features for telecom use, including suchstandards as hand-offs and roaming. WiMAX "cells" can bevery large and are designed for wide coverage.

WiMAX describes an entire access network, including radionetwork resources, access gateways, authenticationservers, and the logical interfaces between each.

WiMAX has robust MAC-layer security (including mutualauthentication). Security in WiFi has always been a gameof catch-up.

Speedwise, WiFi has theoretical maximum speeds of 11mbps (802.11b), 54 mbps (802.11g) or more (802.11n).WiMAX has a theoretical maximum of 70-something mbps(assuming good radio conditions, wide channel bandwidth,and no upstream). WiFi speeds attenuate as distanceincreases in meters; WiMAX in kilometers.

A lot of descriptions take a shortcut approach and say thatWiMAX is WiFi at greater distances, and thats probably trueenough for as much as most people care, but under the hoodthere is a world


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