Wifi Vs Wimax

Wi-Fi:


Wi-Fi refers to wireless fidelity that allows you to connect to the internet wirelessly. Wi-Fi is mainly used to connect computers and other Wi-Fi enabled devices to a local area network. How this works is pretty simple! A wireless router is connected to a modem which is provided by the internet service provider. Now after it is connected to a modem, it allows users to connect via w/LAN. In other words it allows users to access the local area network wirelessly through any Wi-Fi enabled devices. Good examples of Wi-Fi enabled devices are laptops, smart phones and tablets. However, speed of internet via Wi-Fi depends on several factors:

1. Download speeds provided by your internet service provider.

2. Range of the wireless device.

3. Configuration of the wireless device. For example if the router has 802.11a/b/g/n it will be the fastest and provides more range. Wi-Fi802.11a, 802.11b are kind of old technology and can manage speed up to only about 15-20 mbps. Whereas Wi-Fi 802.11g/n provides speed up to and above 54mbps and longer range.



Wi-MAX:

On the other hand WiMAX is similar to Wi-Fi but the main difference is that it is designed for longer range wireless networking connections. Wi-Max is designed to provide internet access to only fixed locations also called ‘Hotzones’, but it covers significantly larger radius from about 4-6 miles, whereas a good wireless router might only have a range of couple hundred meters. It can also provide internet to the entire city by using multiple wimax towers so packs in a lot of range. We don’t see a lot of Wi-Max towers just yet but it is the new upcoming technology to keep an eye on.

WiMAX and Wi-Fi Comparison

WiMAX is similar to the wireless standard known as Wi-Fi, but on a much larger scale and at faster speeds. A nomadic version would keep WiMAX-enabled devices connected over large areas, much like today.s cell phones. We can compare it with Wi-Fi based on the following factors.

IEEE Standards:
Wi-Fi is based on IEEE 802.11 standard where as WiMAX is based on IEEE 802.16. However, both are IEEE standards.

Range:
Wi-Fi typically provides local network access for around a few hundred feet with speeds of up to 54 Mbps, a single WiMAX antenna is expected to have a range of up to 40 miles with speeds of 70 Mbps or more. As such, WiMAX can bring the underlying Internet connection needed to service localWi-Fi networks.

Scalability:
Wi-Fi is intended for LAN applications, users scale from one to tens with one subscriber for each CPE device. Fixed channel sizes (20MHz).

WiMAX is designed to efficiently support from one to hundreds of Consumer premises equipments (CPE)s, with unlimited subscribers behind each CPE. Flexible channel sizes from 1.5MHz to 20MHz.

Bit rate:
Wi-Fi works at 2.7 bps/Hz and can peak up to 54 Mbps in 20 MHz channel.

WiMAX works at 5 bps/Hz and can peak up to 100 Mbps in a 20 MHz channel.

Quality of Service:
Wi-Fi does not guarantee any QoS but WiMax will provide your several level of QoS.

As such, WiMAX can bring the underlying Internet connection needed to service local Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi does not provide ubiquitous broadband while WiMAX does.