The buzz from vendors and carriers about the broadband wireless technology called mobile WiMAX is heating up, fueled by new chipsets and radio products and fanned by some huge carrier investments.

Mobile WiMAX and you Before you decide whether this wireless broadband technology is right for your enterprise . . .
ASK YOURSELF
•	What could employees do with a multimegabit wireless connection that they cannot do now?
•	What business value is associated with deploying broadband wireless access, in hard dollars or in metrics such as improved customer service?
•	Can my business requirements be met cost-effectively with improved 3G data services such as EV-DO Revision A?
•	What data and application requirements do my remote and mobile employees have?
•	Where are these employees, and to what areas do they travel?
ASK YOUR VENDORS
•	What are you spending on your mobile WiMAX infrastructure, and how will you price your service?
•	What will your service-level agreements entail?
•	What security measures will you offer?
•	Will you share throughput, reliability and other results learned from your equipment testing and enterprise pilots?
•	What are your plans for network coverage?
•	What premises and client device interfaces and drivers will you support? Have these been thoroughly tested and certified for use with your network?

For example, Clearwire in the summer rounded up $900 million, including $600 million from WiMAX zealot Intel, to upgrade its growing wireless broadband net to support the IEEE's 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard.

And Sprint Nextel in August became the first U.S. cellular provider to announce plans to deploy a nationwide mobile WiMAX net in the licensed 2.5GHz frequency band.

The carrier will begin offering mobile WiMAX services next year, says Peter Cannistra, a strategic planning director at Sprint.

Intel says it plans to incorporate a mobile WiMAX chipset into its Centrino wireless package, which today supports only Wi-Fi connections. The WiMAX addition is expected in 2007 and would enable WiMAX to be embedded in laptops and other clients, as Wi-Fi connectivity is today.

For the enterprise, mobile WiMAX promises support of multimedia applications and collaboration.

But despite the latest advances, the enterprise won't feel the impact and importance for months, if not years.