It seems Motorola didn’t much care for my recent blog quoting a Motorola executive on the future of WiMAX and Wi-Fi. They gave me a call and said I had it all wrong. Being the fair-minded individual that I am I herewith relate some of their comments.Mind you, Motorola representatives never said I was wrong. I couldn’t be wrong because it came from one of their executives and I didn’t make it up. Nevertheless, if President Bush can re-explain what he meant by “stay the course,” I guess it is only right that Motorola can re-explain what Juan Santiago said when he told me there is no business case for Metro Wi-Fi,Wi-Fi belongs only in the home and that Wi-Fi and WiMAX don’t mix, i.e., they interfere with one another. If you want to read more on WiMAX and Motorola see today’s column.Tom Hulsebosch, senior director of product management for the Wireless Broadband Network at Motorola told me that Motorola supports numerous wireless networks including WiMAX, Wi-FI, and a proprietary “pre-WiMaX” solution called Canopy. We believe all of these solutions have an integral place in the market place he said and added, “Metro Wi-Fi is near and dear to Motorola. We helped create that space.” I’m not sure, is that like Gore saying he invented the Internet? But I’ve interviewed Marty Cooper enough times to know that Motorola is actually credited with inventing the cell phone under then employee Cooper. Motorola is playing a key role in deploying Metro Wi-Fi in at least a dozen cities, delivering the entire access network, not only the access points but the backhaul that feeds the capacity into Motorola’s mesh networks, said Hulsebosch.Cities include Philly, Anaheim, Milpitas, New Orleans, San Francisco. Hulsebosch refutes Santiago’s claim that there is no business case for Metro Wi-Fi and that it must be subsidized in order to succeed. Rather he says, “in any city with 2,000 homes per square mile the Metro Wi-Fi business case it is very attractive.”Finally, Hulsebosch says Wi-Fi and WiMAX only interfere with one another if they exist in the same chip set as Intel is trying to do. Rather if they are two separate radios the problem goes away. But he also added two radios works fine in a desktop but in a cell phone “it is a little trickier.” So why the disconnect between Santiago and Hulsebosch? Let’s chalk it up to enthusiasm. Does it mean Motorola will at some point abandon Wi-Fi? I think they believe WiMAX will replace Wi-Fi at some future point. Santiago just let the cat out of the bag a little too soon. Technology Industry