WiMAX

The idea of WiMax has been around for so long now, that it almost feels like a backward concept. Kicking around as a telecommunications standard since 2001, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access - as its mum might refer to it when it's done something wrong - offers excellent wireless internet connection speeds as well as fantastically broad "hot-spot" coverage. The idea is that, simply speaking, WiMAX radio towers can work in two ways. The first is to offer large-scale public access with a radius of up to 30 miles to those on the go, and the second is to transfer the signal onto and back from other towers and to homes instead of having to use fibre or copper hard wired cables.

It's a good idea for a number of situations, but the problems have been finalising the standards, building these towers and company's coming out with devices of a decent price point that support WiMAX too. With the launch of a couple of phonesand laptops here and there, the products are starting to come and there are already sites and plans for a number of the major telecommunications companies in the US, the UK and all over the world.

With exceedingly fast fibre on its way and LTE for mobile just around the corner, WiMAX may not have quite the uptake everyone dreamed of but, provided someone (not consumers) is willing to pay for it, then it could be a big player in major city centres and in less densely populated areas where running fibre to a small number of homes just isn't economical come 2015.