Digicel is confident of a successful roll-out of its WiMax Internet service following last week's approval of the new technology by the United Nations' (UN's) International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

The endorsement means ITU member countries, including Jamaica, are freer to allocate part of their radio spectrum to WiMax while laptop computers, mobile phones, MP3 players and other portable devices can now be adapted to receive the wireless technology.
Digicel's roll-out, what it has hyped as "the second communications revolution in Jamaica since the company's launch in 2001", is still waiting on a spectrum to be allocated by the Government.

According to Digicel Head of Wireless and Broadband Magnus Johansson the ruling means WiMax has "gone past the hype" and moved closer to technological convergence - what the company calls 'personal broadband'.

"They are now part of that 3G technology and in Europe and other places before you couldn't deploy WiMax for mobiles because it wasn't approved but now providers can get closer to convergence," said Johansson. "Access will come inside a device you have already bought as a consumer, not provided by Digicel or another provider but then you go out and choose your WiMax network."

Digicel, which already offers WiMax service to business customers, says it will offer speeds of between 512 kilobytes per second to four megabytes per second, faster than current Wi-Fi connections. Meanwhile, the first WiMax phones are scheduled to launch next year.

The Irish company, which now offers mobile and fixed line services, had planned to launch its residential WiMax service mid-year which is available to business customers only. During the delay Digicel have completed testing and then launched the service in the Cayman Islands.

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