Intel and Nokia working on seamless WiFi / WiMAX switchoffs

We've seen a lot of research and even some products that promise seamless WiFi / cell roaming, but Intel and Nokia are cooking up tech that might one day bring us true uninterrupted broadband connectivity, based on automatic undetectable switchovers from WiFi to WiMAX. Intel's posted up a brief video demoing the tech auto-switching without interrupting a video conferencing session on a laptop, but it's easy to imagine the potential application on a mobile phone or UMPC -- dare to dream after the break.

[Via DailyWireless]

[Chino B @ Feb 12th 2008 9:51PM]

Thank you come again.

[kEiThZ @ Feb 12th 2008 10:28PM]

Yeah, cause all brown people are FOB's working at 7/11's across the country.

Is that why the US has to import thousands of scientists, engineers and programmers from India every year or why every major tech corporation is now setting up shop in India.

With your red-neck attitude, don't worry, you'll soon find yourself outsourced to someone who works twice as hard, for half the pay and actually cares about customer service. Unless you sell burgers...about the only junk the US can't seem to outsource elsewhere....

[Ian @ Feb 12th 2008 9:57PM]

umm ok i guess i dont understand the point of this, unless there is a huge speed difference between the two.. and if u have to pay per Mb or what ever on WiMAX.

so if someone doesnt mind explain please?

[Yankees368 @ Feb 12th 2008 10:10PM]

The point is that this software automatically tranfers your data from one signal, lets say wifi, to another, wimax, when the original signal becomes too weak to be useful. This way, your data stream continues uninterupted across multiple networks, instead of dropping the connection and then having to re-establish it later.

[Stephen @ Feb 12th 2008 10:23PM]

the other problem, which is the more important and dorkier aspect, is that the wimax spectrums and wifi are close to each other and have the potential of interfering with each other. it will be an interesting challenge to see how vendors deal with the coexistence of wifi, wimax, and bluetooth as they are all in the 2.xx GHz bands

[Ian @ Feb 13th 2008 12:50AM]

so why not just stay on WiMAX the entire time instead of switching back and fourth?

[Scott @ Feb 13th 2008 10:37AM]

@Ian.

Um...You fail it.

[Ian @ Feb 13th 2008 6:35PM]

@scott

o im sorry i cant spend my entire fucking life reading about every little thing about technology on the internet. so when i ask a question that to me is a decent question to ask i think you fail. you asshole. i mean come on are we all so low that we cant ask each other questions anymore? because if u were the model for the human race i think you would fail. sorry buddy not this time, go screw your cat or what ever you do that makes you feel like a man at night.

[Stephen @ Feb 12th 2008 10:10PM]

it's like hand-offs between cellular network cells, highspeed data transitions being seamless. say you are walking around on a voip call via wimax and you start losing signal, it would suck to have to lose connectivity and reconnect on whatever other data network is available. a seamless handoff from wimax to wifi, vice versa, is very much desirable. the other benefit is current drain, one device may be better for your battery than the other and could be set to prioritize connection to one or the other in order to conserve battery life

[CB17 @ Feb 12th 2008 10:10PM]

This is dumb, this tech already exists. T-Mobile? SIP?

[Phineas J. Whoopie @ Feb 12th 2008 10:12PM]

Great. Who chose WiMAX again...Sprint?

[hexoDAT64 @ Feb 12th 2008 10:12PM]

Well I'm glad they aren't working on a uber difficult way....

[Sean @ Feb 12th 2008 10:18PM]

as far as practicality i think wimax shits on LTE and this just proves that

[CB17 @ Feb 12th 2008 10:39PM]

Do you actually have any hard data to back that up or are you just mad that your carrier sucks? (don't answer that it's a rhetorical question, I already know the answer)

[Loudog @ Feb 12th 2008 10:44PM]

This is all great, but...
Mobile IP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_IP) already does this. Heck, I just tested an implementation the other day that does it really well. What else is needed?

[rcastrousa @ Feb 12th 2008 11:21PM]

thats just a protocol spec ...u need hardware to run it on
handoff from wifi to wimax is key for wimax to take off as the 4g tech of choice
wimax can inheret lots of the good stuff from wifi and ethernet...i.e. the tcp/ip stack ... 100Mb/s should be intels goal for wimax to succeed, wimax can run on any frequency or band it depends on implimentation

[Loudog @ Feb 12th 2008 11:45PM]

There's a protocol spec -- and there's actual running code. I've tested running code from a commercial vendor and it works fine. There's a version that runs on Windows, WinCE, and something for Linux as well. Problem solved.

[kk @ Feb 13th 2008 3:35PM]

Mobile IP answers nothing, as WiFi does not have any implementation that will support hand-off.
(It has no quality / Rx deterioration measurements, nor protocols to support it)
WiMAX on the other hand, is cellular, and includes all needed support.

The need for this comes to cover a Black-Hole in WiMAX: It has POOR penetration of walls !
So Indoor, you would love a WiFi.

In addition, WiFi is mostly free - No Charge
WiMAX = Cellular = Very Expensive Data Plan $$$$$
But one would like to be reachable Indoor, and walk in without call cut-off.

??? to me it seems more like a marketing scam, rather then a ready available technology - this will take a while.
We have seen camouflage presentations many times before - heck, even I can make a colourful button switch on screen...

[turn_self_off @ Feb 13th 2008 12:26AM]

jumping like this is "simple", the hard part is having all those higher level protocols not going belly up because you now basically swapped your return address.

[z @ Feb 13th 2008 12:50AM]

This must be coming for the N810 successor which is supposed to have wimax support...

[Parker Edwards @ Feb 13th 2008 1:08AM]

I think I talked to this guy when I called linksys customer support......

[Poom @ Feb 13th 2008 4:42AM]

Wow!!! I'd like this a lot...