Strix, Samsung and WiMax
Just read on Dailywireless, WNN and unstrung that Samsung has invested an undisclosed ammound in Strix networks one of the leading provider of meshed infrastructures for metro-scale networks. Here is an excerpt from Strix’s VP of marketing, Nan Chen on Unstrung:
The first: “Immediate deployment opportunities where the combination of WiFi mesh and WiMax makes sense,” he says. For example, WiFi mesh may need WiMax backhaul, or — more interestingly — WiMax networks may need WiFi mesh backhaul. Unstrung did something of a double-take at this — conventional wireless wisdom has it that WiMax is the technology that will provide the “fat pipe” to backhaul 802.11-based mesh networks, not the other way around. The Strix marketing man says that it ain’t necessarily so.
“That’s right, because WiMax, in current profiles defined by the WiMAX Forum , can’t run faster than the theoretical max of 37.5 Mbit/s, yet current and foreseeable implementations of WiMax are limited to around 20 Mbit/s,” Chen explains. “WiFi mesh with different [so-called smart antenna] techniques or 802.11n can run over 100 Mbit/s. Therefore, WiFi mesh can be a backhaul for WiMax.”
