Many communication pundits believe WiMAX – Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access – has the potential to change wireless communication as we know it. That's because WiMAX – sort of like WiFi on steroids, with network ranges measured in miles rather than meters – can better accommodate voice, video and data traffic than the existing cell-phone infrastructure.

Providence Business News spoke with Jeff Thompson, president and CEO of Towerstream, about the state of WiMAX and its potential.

PBN: How would you characterize the state of the WiMAX industry?

THOMPSON: This is a very exciting time for the WiMAX industry. Clearwire has an IPO. We just became public. Sprint just announced a $4 billion investment in WiMAX. There are hundreds of trials going on.

Equipment is starting to ship that is WiMAX Forum-certified. We're right at the beginning of an exciting new time in broadband wireless.

PBN: What does Sprint entering the market do for the industry?

THOMPSON: Anytime someone puts $4 billion into a technology, it's good for an industry. Because Sprint is a large player, it gives the industry credibility. That definitely helps boost things. But this is a global technology, so it's not only growing fast here, but it's growing very quickly in other countries, specifically in emerging markets.

PBN: Is there a reason why it's picking up momentum now?

THOMPSON: Now we have equipment that's shipping. All the standards have been ratified. We're not waiting on anything anymore. All the things that everyone thought would be happening are happening now.

PBN: How does WiMAX fit into the wireless broadband picture that we have out there now?

THOMPSON: EDVO — Verizon's version of wireless broadband – is extremely slow. It typically has only 150K to share among all its users on a single sector. So most times your broadband experience is going to feel slower than dialup. That's not broadband to most people by any means. With WiMAX, we're talking multi-megabits for multi-miles, which is an incredible leap over 3G. And the cost of running a WiMAX network compared to a legacy cellular network is so dramatically less expensive that your cost structure gives you extremely high margins, which gives you a better business model.

PBN: Why is it less expensive?

THOMPSON: It's a pure IP network. It's not based on a legacy infrastructure.

It's a lot less expensive to run a pure IP network than it is to run a legacy phone network. IP platforms are very efficient for handling multiple users, multiple traffic, multiple packets and multiple routes. Trying to replicate that stuff with the old voice network just doesn't work as well. That's the problem with 3G – 3G is trying to turn an existing voice network into a data network. But voice today is just becoming an application on a data network.

WiMAX isn't trying to fix an old problem. It's a data network that's built to be a data network from the ground up.

PBN: Does WiMAX have any weaknesses?

THOMPSON: It's not shipping at scale yet. That's changing month by month. It's a very short-term weakness.

PBN: Has the growth of VoIP affected your business?

THOMPSON: Every small and medium business is trying to get into VoIP. All the networks are going to IP. That argument is over. Everyone is going to VoIP eventually. ... Now people are concerned with real-time video and video conferencing. The fact that we have a product that can deliver those services better than the legacy infrastructure is a plus for our business.

PBN: Last month you got listed on a stock exchange. What does that do for a company?

THOMPSON: It gives us more visibility. It gives us access to capital markets. It's great for recruiting key people for the company, because you can offer them stock options.

PBN: What major developments can we expect to see in WiMAX in the coming months?

THOMPSON: You can expect to see a lot more deployments. Wall Street is beginning to pay a lot more attention to the space. The investment community is also getting excited about the space. So you're going to see a lot more people executing on the model and getting WiMAX to consumers and businesses.

The great thing about IP technology is that anything you can do on the Internet now you can do on WiMAX. It's not like the walled garden you see with the cell-phone guys.