We want to put a question forward to you because we wish to know what you think is the best option, the three main technologies when it comes to Wireless data broadcasting, and they are 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX.

So much technology going into mobile phones nowadays is sometimes mind blowing and choosing the right phone with the right features is a hard job sometimes, many consumers may choose a handset based on the looks whereas many will choose for the features. Technology such as RF MEMS technology can be applied to the radio frequency front ends of mobile phones which include the power amplifier and antenna and by using these components in mobile phones can be made to be tuneable, in that we mean they can support many wireless interfaces including 3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX. They can work/operate over many of frequency bands and these capabilities are expected to become much more important in mobile phones.

3G, Wi-Fi and WiMAX are the three main technologies we are looking at here which are capable of broadcasting wireless data at broadband speeds to mobile phones, of course each of these have their upsides and downsides. The downsides include countries that do not support some of these, the upsides is obviously the faster we can search the web and retrieve data the better. In Europe and the US Wi-Fi has been one of the most widely used as a hot-spot and wide-area mesh solution and is pretty popular by local governments and colleges, WiMAX however is very good for mobile access solution and fixed wireless solution that could possibly compete with mobile 3G.

3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a much wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.

The purpose of Wi-Fi is to hide complexity by enabling wireless access to applications and data, media and streams. The main aims of Wi-Fi are to: facilitate access to information, ensure compatibility and coexistence, eliminate cabling and wiring plus eliminate switches, adapters, plugs and connectors. Personally at the moment I am using the Apple iPhone which uses Wi-Fi, and must say it works pretty well, but obviously some may beg to dither.

WiMAX which stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, this technology provides wireless data in many different ways, we will name just a few. It is all about point-to-point links to full mobile phone type access, in basic terms as not to bore you it is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard or also known as WirelessMAN, the name WiMAX was in fact created by the WiMAX forum which was created in June 2001 to promote conformance and interoperability of the standard. WiMAX is described as a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL and also to High Speed Packet Access.

So now you know a little about each one, “what is the best option when it comes to Wireless data broadcasting, 3G, Wi-Fi or WiMAX?