Agilent Measurement Journal - Issue 3 - 2007 - (Page 25)

I Increasingly, the world today is being deﬁned by anytime, anywhere connectivity. Digital entertainment and communication is everywhere and available to billions of people personally, worldwide. Nearly two billion people use mobile phones on a daily basis — not just for their voice services but for a growing number of social and mobile, data-centric Internet applications. Average consumers now not only expect pervasive, ubiquitous mobility, they demand it. One technology hoping to further cement this trend toward mobility on a global basis is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, otherwise known as WiMAX. Although a relative newcomer to the commercial arena, WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX™ have garnered increasing attention from both consumers and technologists alike. Its popularity has been driven by its promise to quickly and cost-effectively deliver superfast broadband wireless access to underserved areas around the world, as well as recent worldwide developments in spectrum allocation and standardization. Also bolstering its popularity is the global support it has received in Europe, South Korea and the United States (see the sidebar, WiMAX deployment around the world). a high-data-rate, low-latency and packet-optimized radio-access technology, thereby ensuring that UMTS remains a highly competitive technology through 2010 and beyond. As no commercial deployments of Mobile WiMAX yet exist, though, its performance in a real network implementation remains to be seen. In spite of these criticisms, there is no denying the growing global awareness — and momentum — of WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX. Of course, realizing its full potential on a worldwide basis will require device manufacturers, service providers and network operators alike to effectively address the myriad technical challenges they now face. As a derivative industry, measurement stands as an enabler of emerging industries such as WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX, supporting technology commercialization within that industry. New measurement solutions, therefore, will need to be created alongside the development and commercialization of WiMAX technology. More and more, such solutions will become critical to adequately addressing the challenges now facing device manufacturers, service providers and network operators. Sketching the challenges Proceeding with cautious optimism While such information creates a very compelling story for Mobile WiMAX, the technology is not without its detractors. Critics cautiously point to the fact that phones and laptop cards combining technologies such as Wi-Fi and cellular might well prove to be less expensive and more reliable in the short term; however, large-scale deployments will be necessary to prove the validity of that claim. With a few exceptions, even traditional cell phone companies seem reticent to adopt WiMAX, having already invested a fortune in building their own wireless voice and data networks and still hurting from having to write off monumental 3G costs. Instead, they hope to recoup some of this investment through enhancements to UMTS in the form of the new 3G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) standard. This standard aims to evolve 3G toward The widespread global interest in WiMAX and Mobile WiMAX has created a number of daunting new challenges. In the case of the device manufacturer, many of these challenges stem from the fact that the IEEE 802.16 standard speciﬁes minimum performance requirements, but gives the implementer room to interpret how a device such as a WiMAX handset is built. With this amount of leeway, standards-compliant devices can vary widely from one company to another. As a result, the ability to take advantage of emerging market opportunities is closely tied to the manufacturer’s ability to test its products for regulatory and standards compliance. It is also tied to the manufacturer’s ability to keep pace with emerging WiMAX applications in light of shrinking design cycles and time-to-market schedules. Regular WiMAX Forum®-sponsored Plugfests also help ensure interoperability, but there is more work to be done. Another challenge is how to decrease costs in product design, manufacturing and test while increasing product performance, functionality and quality. Agilent Measurement Journal 25

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Agilent Measurement Journal - Issue 3 - 2007

Applying Ingenuity to the Measurement of Emerging Technologies Contents Emerging Innovations Department Delivering Bigger Benefits by Optimizing Customer Workflows Measuring Material Properties at the Nanoscale Utilizing In Situ Atomic Force Microscopy in Life Science, Pharmaceutical and other Bio-Related Applications WiMAX™: Plotting a New Path to Global Mobility Addressing the Triple Complexity of Triple-Play Networks What Next for Mobile Telephony? Exploring the Inner Workings of Tire-Pressure Monitoring Systems Developing, Assessing and Applying a High-Resolution Thin-Film Magnetic Probe Making Accurate Settling-Time Measurements Using a Vector Network Analyzer Applying Metabolomics Methods to the Study of Bacterial Leaf Blight in Rice Plants Measuring Stream Dynamics with Fiber Optics survey

Agilent Measurement Journal - Issue 3 - 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.