subject: The New Wi-Fi: Understanding What WiMax Means for Las Vegas and Houston [print this page] For cities that see a large number of business travelers, Las Vegas and Houston both know the importance of staying ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. After all, countless conference centers and big-name clients mean the chance to either make or break a city's tech-savvy reputation. And if all of the bigwigs open their laptops in cafes and public spaces only to find that Wi-Fi signals are unreliable at best and nonexistent at worst, it can definitely have a ripple effect as far as where people decide to hold their conferences in the future.
However, countless businesses are now able to take advantage of amenities and city location exclusively, without having to worry about the world of wireless internet as it once existed. Because countless other technological breakthroughs are making it possible for companies to keep their traveling employees in touch with the main office without counting on a third party's web access, now the focus can be on other measures. And for those who are in the world of business travel but who have not yet embraced the latest upgrade in Wi-Fi, it's never been a better time to do one's homework and get in before it becomes par for the course.
To understand what it means to move Wi-Fi forward, it's first crucial to understand how Wi-Fi works in the first place. For business travelers, home networkers, and those in college environments with Wi-Fi, there is a router or a series of routers that manages to magnify a signal from a regular modem and make it accessible for a room full of people. The troubles begin when routers, which cannot actually broadcast for feet and feet, only for short distances, get overloaded with too many people. Connections lag or drop, those using the networks get cranky, and there is a lot of time spent doing damage control. This works well for a small home environment, in short, but not for a hotel full of cranky businessmen.
With WiMax, there is no more relying on a small, closed network, because the network in question is powerful in the same way that the one that powers one's cell phone is. This means towers that provide signals that go for miles and miles, a reliable way of staying connected from coast to coast, and the chance to land at three in the morning in Las Vegas or Houston without freaking out that there better be a working Wi-Fi connection at the hotel. This new method of getting online is also helpful for cities, because it means that there is less of a burden on convention centers and other spaces to provide Wi-Fi, if people are moving towards WiMax. And with the convenience of the technology, plus the numerous advantages associated with using it, there's not much of a reason for anyone who has made the upgrade to switch back to a world of Wi-Fi.
So whether running a big business in Las Vegas or figuring out ways to not spend a trip to Houston figuring out how to stay online, embracing the latest method of getting online makes sense for a wide variety of people. Best of all, with most laptops already equipped for this style of connection, there's no need to go out and figure out what device to invest in to bring the signal home.
The New Wi-Fi: Understanding What WiMax Means for Las Vegas and Houston
