if you find it difficult to get excited by the details of a new wirelessdata protocol you are not alone so what explains the current buzz in the telecom and computer industries surrounding wimax a highspeed longrange wireless standard this week investors pumped 20m into aperto networks of milpitas california one of several firms planning to launch wimax products this year heavyweights such as intel nokia and att are lining up behind the standard sean maloney the head of intels telecom division says it will put the next 5 billion users on internet whereas wimax has promise says john yunker an analyst at pyramid research it is surrounded by much confusion and a ton of hypeindeed all this is strongly reminiscent of the fuss over wifi a technology that uses a small basestation plugged into a broadband connection to link laptops within 50 metres or so to the internet wifi is undoubtedly useful in 9 of american households for example but it is used mainly to provide wireless internet coverage inside homes offices and schools few people seem to be prepared to pay for feebased wifi access in hotspots in airports and railway stations and schemes to cover whole cities with wifi and make expensive thirdgeneration 3g mobilephone networks redundant have got nowhere whereas wifi provides coverage within a small hotspot wimax which has a maximum range of 30 miles could provide blanket coverage it could as a result prove to be a far more useful and disruptive technologywimax will ensure compatibility between different vendors fixedwireless broadband equipment which provides fast wirelessdata connections between fixed points over long distances now wimax is a fixed technology if technology can be scaled down to fit inside mobile devices says yunker that changes everything intel plans to make wimax support a standard feature of most laptop computers starting in 2006 or 2007 by then a mobile version of the wimax standard is expected to be approvedaccording to brian modoff an analyst at deutsche bank intel has been drinking too much of the wimax koolaid for one thing equipment vendors may be reluctant to push wimax gear since it could cannibalise sales of more lucrative 3g equipment and operators are playing wait and see they are reluctant to commit themselves until the technology is proven furthermore few of them have the spectrum needed to deploy wimax amid the hype and the confusion wimax is evidently worth keeping an eye on watch this airspace the economist