Greetings!

I hope our newsletter finds everyone in the midst of enjoying a beautiful summer. This month our feature article looks at WiMAX wireless technology, which, like last month's IPTV, Deloitte named a top technology that will make significant economic impact over the next few years. We also look at employee-purchased notebooks, which are an exciting new business trend. Be sure to look over our book choices!

Enjoy the warm weather!

Doreen Gebbia

What is WiMAX?

Two years ago, there were three basic ways of accessing the internet: Broadband, Wi-Fi, and Dial- up. Now we are introduced to WiMAX, short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, which is a wireless internet technology that has gained popularity for three major reasons. The first is that it offers the same high speed of broadband service. Second, WiMAX is wireless rather than wired access, so its less expensive than cable or DSL and much easier to extend into suburban and rural areas. Finally, WiMAX offers broad coverage and has the ability to connect small Wi-Fi hotspots with each other as well as coverage for large metropolitan areas. WiMAX has the potential to do to broadband internet access what cell phones have done to phone access.

How WiMAX Works

WiMAX operates in a similar way to Wi-Fi, but at higher speeds and over greater distances, as well as for a greater number of users. There are two parts to a WiMAX system: a tower and a receiver. The WiMAX tower, much like a cell phone tower, can provide coverage to an area as big as 3,000 square miles. This is a huge region, especially compared to Wi-Fis range of about 100 feet. The increased range is due to the frequencies used and the power of the transmitter. The second half of the system, the WiMAX receiver, can be a small box receiver with an antenna or built into a laptopmuch in the way Wi-Fi access is today. The WiMAX tower station can connect directly to the internet with a high- bandwidth wired connection, or to another WiMAX tower using a line-of-sight, microwave link. Often referred to as a backhaul, this connection to a second tower is what allows WiMAX to provide remote rural areas with coverage. As mentioned above, WiMAX operates on the same general principles as Wi-Fi, sending data from one computer to another via radio signals. However, the fastest Wi- Fi connection can only transmit up to 54 megabits per second. WiMAX, on the other hand, can handle 70 megabits per second. Even once the 70 megabits is split up between several dozen businesses or a few hundred home users, it will provide at least the equivalent of cable-modem transfer rates to each user.

Where is WiMAX headed?

What makes WiMAX so attractive is its potential to provide broadband wireless access to entire sections of metropolitan areas, as well as small and remote locales throughout the world. People who could not afford it will now be able to get broadband, and in addition it may be available where it previously was not. The first few months of 2006 saw many companies moving into the WiMAX arena. Intel has been a major driver in the worldwide implementation towards the explosion and price reduction of WiMAX. In fact, Intel claims to be able to drive the price per user to zero over the next 3-4 years. This may be possible as Intel is embedding WiMAX into the system processors and board architectures for laptop, PDA and other devices. WiMAX could replace cable and DSL services, providing universal internet access just about anywhere.

Read about Intel and WiMAX

Gartner, Inc. predicts employee-purchased notebooks to be one of several IT industry trends that will cause significant disruption and drive opportunity for business and the IT industry in 2006 and beyond. Company-owned notebooks are commonly used for personal purposes, such as e- mail, music and videos. Gartner predicts that notebooks will begin to move from company ownership to personal ownership. Since notebook prices have declined dramatically during the past few years, this transition is mostly likely to be managed through the implementation of a notebook allowance, much like car mileage today. Transferring notebook ownership to employees does not eliminate the cost of PCs, but shifts it to employee benefits and indirect user operational costs, said Leslie Fiering, research vice president at Gartner. The payback is removing PC assets from the company books and freeing IT to focus on critical business initiatives.

Read more about Gartner's IT Trends

From microchips and iPods to robots in the human bloodstream, Cool Stuff and How it Works takes you on an eye-opening journey through the world of modern technology, explaining where today's most innovative inventions came from, how they work, and where they might take us in the future.

Purchase Cool Stuff and How it Works from Barnes and Noble