It's good to see Intel being useful. It was useful in the 1970s in getting MOS memory to work and commercialising microprocessors, the combination of which democratised the computer. Now we all have one.
In the late 80s Intel concentrated on establishing a monopoly and became rich and big, but not very useful.
Intel became useful again when it set out to democratise telecommunications.
Intel didn't really want to democratise telelcoms, but it realised that PCs needed connectivity to keep evolving, and that the traditional telecommunications network operators, chronically averse to investing in new technology, would be slow to provide the requisite broadband connectivity,
If PCs were to get useful connectivity, telecoms had to be democratised. So Intel invested in a network operator called Covad.
Covad was a new type of operator, a CLEC, enabled by the 1996 US Telecommunications Act. Unfortunately, the CLEC business model proved unsuccessful.
Intel then set off on an alternative route to PC connectivity - WiFi. In this, Intel was successful and extremely useful. We almost all use WiFi.
Now Intel is being useful again in promoting Wimax.
Clearly the future requires multi-megabit per second wireless, maybe even multi-tens of megabit/sec.
Are the cellular guys going to provide that? They're just about at 1Mbit/sec now in the UK using HSPA, and only in limited urban areas. How long before they're able to carry the multi-tens of megabits/sec data promised by HSPA?
Well, if they live up to their reputation, the cellular guys will be slow, they'll charge the earth, they'll put in networks which are barely on the edge of technical adequacy.
On the other hand, Wimax can do the job of delivering multi-tens of megabits/sec data, it can do it cheaper and quicker than cellular, and alternative carriers can get into the Wimax game.
That sounds like telecoms democratisaton.
And that's why Intel is being useful.
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