Despite the plethora of news stories about the benefits of WiMax and why it outdoes WiFi, the reality is WiMax for the rest of us won’t be available for at least another three years. I did a column on this about a year ago and everything I said about WiMax then is still true now. The current level of excitement is due to the news that Intel is now shipping WiMax chips. See our news story. The first iteration of the technology will be used by the carriers, not ordinary citizens. One reason for that is that it is a fixed wireless solution useful for last mile connections to customers.Carriers like AT&T spend over $8 billion a year paying fees to the ILECs [Incumbant Local Exchange Carrier] to use their wired links to buildings and homes. WiMax is a way around that. If AT&T can deploy a Wimax radio and antennas on buildings, it can bypass the ILECs.However, WiMax is not mobile. In fact even the standard for fixed wireless hasn’t been ratified let alone a standard for mobility. WiMax for mobile has a long ratification process to go through. So Intel and others aren’t shipping WiMax mobile chips simply because they really can’t even start until the mobile standard is closer to ratification and they are assured that it won’t change.So, next year you might see some Metropolitan Area Networks [MANs], that’s fixed wireless from one building to another, come to fruition, but you won’t be seeing WiMax hot spots for quite some time. Technology Industry