Amended from dBusiness News - Atlanta:
Atlanta - In U.S. cities and suburbs, high-speed wireless Internet
connections are becoming more commonplace, making “anytime, anywhere
learning” for students a more viable concept. But that kind of access
and the opportunities it provides are not yet available in most rural
areas.
GTRI researcher Jay Sexton sets up wireless equipment atop a remote mountain near Missoula, Montana.
However, a solution is in
sight, and two recent demonstrations at educational technology
conferences in Missoula, Mont., whet the appetite of educators and
information specialists who want to use it to level the playing field
for students. Atop a remote mountain near Missoula, engineers at the
Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) awed conference attendees with
the video streaming, Web surfing and email capabilities of new wireless
technology standards called 802.16 or WiMax (an acronym for Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access).
WiMax is a set of
standards for delivering point-to-point, as well as
point-to-multi-point wireless broadband connectivity. Point-to-point
transmission is a direct transmission from a tower to a
central-office-type location up to 30 miles away. At the central office
location, point-to-multi-point connectivity extends up to five miles
from the central office.
“WiMax is important because it’s
potentially the most cost-effective approach for broadband data service
in rural areas,” says Jeff Evans, a GTRI senior research engineer who
led the demo team. In rural areas, the cost to lay fiber for wired
broadband service is about $200,000 or more per mile, an investment
that communications companies typically don’t want to make because they
cannot recoup their money within several years.
“But with
WiMax, an Internet service provider that wants to reach a small
community up to 30 miles away can set up a wireless link for thousands
of dollars rather than hundreds of thousands,” Evans notes. “You can
quickly provide a long-haul link of 70 megabits per second and then
deploy a local WiMax radio to provide up to several megabits per second
to each home in the area—giving you DSL speeds at a reasonable cost.”
GTRI researcher Jeff Evans (left) and University
of Montana information technology specialist Rick Waldorf pose with
parallel 802.11 and WiMax Internet links connecting 11 miles to
Missoula, Montana. Such access may soon be available in Georgia and elsewhere.
WiMax-capable equipment for fixed-location connections is expected to
be readily available on the market by the end of this year. Meanwhile,
a new mobile WiMax standard, or 802.16e, is expected in late 2006 with
compatible equipment available in 2007.
Around the nation,
wireless technology companies and researchers have been demonstrating
the capabilities of the new standards. The Georgia Department of
Education’s Mike Hall, deputy superintendent of information technology,
involved GTRI researchers in the Montana demo through GTRI’s
Foundations for the Future (F3) technology assistance program for K-12
Georgia schools. Intel sponsored the conferences and invited Evans and
his colleagues to design and implement the network demos.
“The
people who saw the demo were amazed,” says Terry Smithson, Intel’s K-12
marketing manager. “They had to ride horses for two and a half hours to
get to the top of the mountain. Then we presented a live
videoconference with GTRI researchers, and later let the participants
surf the Internet, see streaming video and check email on laptops.”
Hall
hailed the success of the demo in overcoming the speed, performance,
distance and security issues that hamper current wireless technology.
Though WiMax won’t necessarily be a solution inside the walls of
Georgia schools – many of which are already hard-wired for broadband
Internet access – the technology could make it possible for students to
learn in all kinds of places. He hopes Georgia can lead the nation in
implementing this goal.
“We envision access for all students
from bus stops, playgrounds, parks and, more importantly, all homes,”
Hall says. “If I live in a small, south Georgia community right now,
high-speed access is a major problem. Technology is a great equalizer.
With equipment and access, the world can come into any home.”
GTRI,
GDOE, Intel and TSI, an Atlanta-based technology integration company,
are making plans for continued interaction to bring WiMax technology to
Georgia’s students and others. TSI owner John David Pickering says:
“Now we have a good consortium of industry like Intel, business people
like myself and researchers at GTRI that will allow companies and
educators to see and use the latest, greatest technology. It will take
all of us to deliver it.”
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