WiMax is a technology that is often viewed by the South African ICT industry as the number one potential 'bandwidth saviour' in a nation still burdened by high connectivity prices and slow connectivity speeds, but not everyone shares this view.
"It is my considered opinion that WiMax is a technology that is overpriced, and vendors have a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver when it comes to this technology," says Bertus van Jaarsveld, CEO of Miro Distribution, a distributor of wireless technologies.
"What is even more amazing is that so many people fall for this hype when there are existing solutions out there that can provide affordable, reliable and ubiquitous broadband and have been doing so for the past few years already."
He says there is a WiMax solution available from a Latvian-based company called MikroTik Networks that is not only a proven technology, but is one that offers the same benefits that WiMax does - such as subscriber management, bandwidth management and full quality of service (QoS) - but at a tenth of the price of WiMax.
"The MikroTik solution can also offer long distance links, with distances of up to 70km easily achievable, as well as throughput of up to 40Mbps," he says.
Van Jaarsveld says that research organisation BMI-TechKnowledge has predicted that by 2020, some 80% of IT spend in the country will be in the small and medium business (SMB) sector. He believes 'disruptive' technologies like those from MikroTik are the ones that really have the potential to shake up this sector of the market, because they are both cheap and reliable.
"We have been hearing that 'WiMax is coming' for years, and yet while people are still waiting for it to manifest into something reasonably workable, we have had wireless networks that can match its offerings out there that have been operational for four years, with technology that is already proven and field-tested - we have already supplied equipment for more than 30 000 installations in South Africa alone, most of which are used for last-mile Internet service provision."
"My opinion of WiMax is that it will more likely be a technology for the 'few'. What I mean is that it will probably be similar to GSM in the sense that it will be used by a few big networks, but will not be available to entrepreneurs, and it is usually the entrepreneurs who are the ones to bring about real change in regard to competition and regulation."
He claims that in the end it is not about Miro Distribution or the specific products that the company supplies, it is ultimately about making people aware that there are alternative technologies out there that are reasonably priced and that if these can offer everything a business requires, they must warrant a closer look.
"People have something of a 'disease' when it comes to seeking products with labels - whether it is clothing, cars or broadband connectivity - many seem to think that just because a product has the right label and a high price, it therefore must be good.
"However, they should never confuse a low-cost product with low performance, low features or low quality!"
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