As I've had to state to people multiple times, even though the spec technically says it can do 150 Mbps (or up to 300 Mbps with MIMO), you still have to share the channel with multiple users. You must divide that data rate by the number of active users and their effective requested rate. Cell phones will probably be power/processor constrained so they may set their own maximum requested rate. Laptops would probably get faster rates. Although this is all moot if the cell company enforces a data rate cap to limit bandwidth hogs. The same applies to WiMax. Don't count WiMax out yet though. Updates in 802.16m are down the road with faster data rates. WiMax still has its place in broadband wireless. In the end, it will not be an "winner and loser" situation but "which technology suits my application" type of future. The battle between the standards is all marketing. To the end user, the technology is all transparent.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
As I've had to state to people multiple times, even though the spec technically says it can do 150 Mbps (or up to 300 Mbps with MIMO), you still have to share the channel with multiple users. You must divide that data rate by the number of active users and their effective requested rate. Cell phones will probably be power/processor constrained so they may set their own maximum requested rate. Laptops would probably get faster rates. Although this is all moot if the cell company enforces a data rate cap to limit bandwidth hogs.
The same applies to WiMax. Don't count WiMax out yet though. Updates in 802.16m are down the road with faster data rates. WiMax still has its place in broadband wireless. In the end, it will not be an "winner and loser" situation but "which technology suits my application" type of future. The battle between the standards is all marketing. To the end user, the technology is all transparent.