wifi vs wimax for industry and smart grid

Replies

• 

  Ashraf HZ

  Back then..
  WiMAX:
  - Large coverage (enhanced with use if MIMO)
  - Considered cheap to deploy (if many devices on market to drive chipset cost down)
  - Inherent IP architecture makes it perfect for data applications (eg utility monitoring)
  - Low power consumption for device
  
  WiFi:
  - Device is power hungry
  - Short coverage, need to connect to some other hotspot. Even WiMAX was considered as back haul
  - Only good thing is its cheap
  
  Now
  WiMAX:
  - Cost of deployment depends on where you are really. Some countries WiMAX has better prominence and coverage, others have difficulty penetrating the market due to competition by GSM/CDMA networks upgrading to LTE (e.g US). If there is no high demand for a particular technology, vendors are not enticed to sell equipment at bulk prices. So its expensive and also no point if there is no coverage!
  
  WiFi
  - Power consumption is much lower
  - Still cheaper as it has prominent use
  - Using hotspot for back haul may be a better option anyway. The hotspot device may just cover a particular street or building with WiFi and the back haul will be network agnostic (be it WiMAX, 3G, LTE etc)
  
  However, in the case of utilities, there are many other technologies available to them for monitoring, such as powerline broadband for fixed, and Zigbee as an alternative to WiFi.