Sri Lanka: “Mobile” WiMAX launched


Posted on January 12, 2011  /  0 Comments

A subsidiary of the incumbent telco has launched WiMAX 16e service in Sri Lanka. The launch has come after a long preparation period, but if the price and quality parameters are right, the chances of success are high since broadband is about to take off.

Sky Network CEO, Mahinda Herath said that WiMAX 16e broadband service offers a superior broadband experience for households, the corporate sector and SME. He said the offering will soon incorporate other value added features such as usage and quality of service based charging models and web-based payment options.

“Our vision is to give each and every person in Sri Lanka access to high-speed broadband connectivity and digital content anywhere in the island at any time,” Herath said yesterday while addressing an audience at the launch of the new product.

He said that several areas have already been earmarked for Skymax technology and plans are underway for businesses and residents of these areas to receive access to the 4G technology. He said the new technology will reduce the cost and hassle of setting it up.

The details of the 16e standard are available here:

The 802.16e standard adds OFDMA 2K-FFT, 512-FFT and 128-FFT capability. Sub-channelization facilitates access at varying distance by providing operators the capability to dynamically reduce the number of channels while increasing the gain of signal to each channel in order to reach customers farther away. The reverse is also possible. For example, when a user gets closer to a cell site, the number of channels will increase and the modulation can also change to increase bandwidth. At longer ranges, modulations like QPSK (which offer robust links but lower bandwidth) can give way at shorter ranges to 64 QAM (which are more sensitive links, but offer much higher bandwidth) for example. Each subscriber is linked to a number of subchannels that obviate multi-path interference. The upshot is that cells should be much less sensitive to overload and cell size shrinkage during the load than before. Ideally, customers at any range should receive solid QOS without drops that 3G technology may experience.

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