subject: WiMax Over Wi-Fi for Midland Residents [print this page] Are you a resident of Midland, Texas, or the surrounding Midland County area who is looking to get broadband speed Internet connections with mobile capabilities? Has not being able to find an open, non password protected Wi-Fi connection taught you not to take wireless high speed Internet for granted? If so, then you should continue reading this article for more information on a new highspeed wireless Internet technology, also known as WiMax mobile broadband Internet, that completely blows Wi-Fi service out of the water.
Sure, Wi-Fi networks have more mobility to offer to their customers than stationary wired DSL and cable connections. However, the amoung of real mobility that Wi-Fi users are truly able to enjoy is actually pretty restricted. For the most part, this is due to the fact that Wi-Fi networks are local area networks, or LANs, which basically means that you have to be within a couple hundred feet of a router in order to be able to pick up signals. If you wander too far away from the router, your connection will be lost. This is a common problem or at least a limitation of Wi-Fi networks, and you have probably had a first hand experience of this happening. So, as you can see, the mobility you get from Wi-Fi networks really is not all that mobile.
Another problem with using Wi-Fi networks for mobile Internet access is that many of these networks are managed by private subscribers who block you from using their networks by protecting them with passwords. When you do manage to find an open Wi-Fi network that is not password protected, it is often clogged up with traffic because everyone in the nearby area has found the same network and wants to use it. And this slows down the connection speeds and also often causes you to get disconnected without warning, regardless of whether you have wandered outside the coverage area or not.
With a new mobile broadband service called WiMax (which is short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), Internet users do not have to worry about the same problems that they experience with Wi-Fi networks. First of all, these new networks are different from Wi-Fi networks in that they are not local area networks they are wide area networks, or WANs. Just this classification should tell you a lot. As a wide area network, this type of service is able to create coverage areas that are much, much bigger than the ones created by Wi-Fi service a single continuous coverage area can be as big as a whole city. This, of course, means no holes in service or having to search for an open network, since everywhere you go will be covered by the same network. On top of that, WiMax networks are not slowed down just because you are sharing the network with other people. These networks are able to accommodate much more simultaneous traffic than Wi-Fi networks can. So if you are a Midland resident and want high speed Internet connections that are truly mobile, WiMax is the way to go.
