Tokyo Citywide WiMAX Network
Tokyo Citywide WiMAX Network

Tokyo Citywide WiMAX Network

Tokyo Citywide WiMAX Network

Two vendors, one American and the other Japanese, said they have plans to deploy a citywide WiMAX wireless broadband network in Tokyo. U.S. vendor Airspan and Japanese communications operator Yozan said they will start trials for the network in the second quarter of this year. They said that commercial rollout will begin in the fourth quarter, with a fuller-scale launch in December. Japanese telecom operator NTT said earlier in the week that it plans to deploy metro-scale Wi-Fi networks in a number of locations. 

“This network, in one of the world’s top five cities, will be the first major deployment of a WiMAX Metropolitan Area Network,” Henrik Smith-Petersen, Airspan’s president for the Asia Pacific region, said in a statement. “We are extremely pleased to be able to partner with Yozan, whose vision of pervasive broadband we share.” Airspan will provide both the base stations and the customer premises equipment, the company said.

All About WiMax
http://www.intel.com/netcomms/technologies/wimax/
Wi-Fi and WiMAX are actually complementary technologies. As WiMAX is a “last mile” technology, meaning that it connects businesses and homes to the high-speed Internet. Wi-Fi provides the wireless LAN connectivity within a building or a home. In the notebook computer of the future, you may have both WiMAX and Wi-Fi technology to make connections to the broadband Internet. These two technologies have been architected as close cousins, and will work together to provide the best connection for your needs.