Brave new world

CHICAGO-Welcome to WiMAX World!
It’s impossible to digest and concisely describe an entirely new industry-complete with new entrants, new business models and, oh yeah, new technologies-in a matter of two days, but I’m going to take a stab at it anyway.
The vision of mobile broadband is the Internet, only wireless. Sometimes it’s fixed, sometimes it’s mobile. Sometimes it’s getting easy, quick, cheap access to information, sometimes on familiar devices embedded with new chips. And sometimes it’s completely new applications, on new devices (think of squeezing a stress ball and having your biometrics automatically forwarded to your healthcare provider).
“It’s about all the content and documentation of human existence,” said Xohm’s Atish Gude.
Read that again: “all the content and documentation of human existence.” Wow.
The challenges are real. Creating what companies are betting will become a multibillion-dollar industry is rocket science. Sprint Nextel and Clearwire were the celebrities at last week’s show, but WiMAX needs an entire ecosystem to support it. Regulations that have not been written yet could derail it, or propel it to quicker adoption by the masses.
The hard work is in the details. But the ability to connect people in new ways-and all of the potential that comes with that-is huge. How often do you as a person get to take part in something that has the potential to change the world?
In wireless, it happens a lot.