In this Article Proprietary routing standards Wireless mesh vs. WiMAX Related Links How wireless mesh works What is 802.11s? Building synchronous wireless meshes

Not too long ago, enterprises had limited options when it came to making a wireless network part of the New Data Center plan. In the local area, the choice was Wi-Fi - 802.11b, g or a. In the larger campus or metropolitan area, people anticipated widespread WiMAX deployments (aka 802.16d or 802.16e) because of the promise of broadband-level bandwidth, improved flexibility and tight security.

Not so anymore. These days, metropolitan wireless mesh networks threaten to leave WiMAX at the gate. The reasons are numerous: They follow the traditional Wi-Fi standard, so any Wi-Fi-enabled client can work with them, users and analysts say. Plus, they don't require wire runs to every node, they are designed to be self-organizing and -healing, and they scale on the fly. If you need more capacity, add another node, and you've got it.

In addition, mesh gear is available from Cisco, Firetide, Strix Systems, Tropos Networks and others. WiMAX products are not nearly as prevalent. Fixed WiMAX equipment is just coming to market, and mobile WiMAX gear is not expected to arrive much before late 2007.

"I looked at WiMAX in the public safety arena. . . . It worked great in a stationary environment, especially for video cameras, but once I tried it in a mobile environment, it didn't work," says Peter Collins, CIO for the city of Austin, Texas, which recently deployed a series of wireless meshes using Cisco Aironet 1500 series gear.