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 Lucky, lucky Milton Keynes looks like it's going to become the first British town to get high-speed wireless network internet access based on WiMAX technology. This will be quite a bump up for Milton Keynes: from limited availability of high-speed broadband to high-speed net access via WiMAX.
Unlike WiFi, WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) offers high-speed net access at multi-megabit speeds over vast areas, instead of just a few meters. WiMAX is seen to be a tough competition for WiFi, as it's already being used in thousands of hotspots around the world and has far more extensive wireless coverage than WiFi.
 However, as compared to WiFi, WiMAX still remains widely unused. This is due to the need for expensive hardware and the specifications needed to use it in conjunction with wireless roaming plus other wireless technologies are still yet incomplete. In the US, Sprint Nextel announced its plans to build a national WiMAX network that will cost the company $3 billion.
Net connection firm Pipex will be responsible for administering a trial run of a Wimax network, which will be used to take broadband access to the townsfolk that could not get internet connection. If things go well, Pipex said that the Wimax system should be up and running by the end of this year and hopefully deployed in eight UK towns by 2008. A detailed outline of Pipex's plans is not available yet, not for at least four weeks.
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