No end to the hype

Industry vendors creating hoopla out of technologies that are ahead of their time will obviously find it hard to fulfill their promises.

WiMax is an example. While I've heard that acronym many times in the last few years--and it's sure to crop up again at this week's CommunicAsia--I've yet to see a promising deployment, at least in Asia.

Last year, an Indian telco recounted its troubles with WiMax, while a Malaysian counterpart wished the price of modems would drop further to spur widespread take-up.

Japan's NTT DoCoMo is experimenting with WiMax, and Korea's WiBro, the country's homegrown cousin of WiMax, is just starting to take flight.

But vendors continue to hype technologies that have yet to prove their worth.

Early this year, one WiMax vendor proclaimed it had secured a contract with an ISP in one of Asia' less-developed countries--also the first country that I know of that's touting nationwide wireless broadband coverage.

But recently, I found out from a businessman with operations there that he was possibly the tenth customer to sign up for the service. In less than six months, it's garnered only 10 users so far? That's a far cry from the glorified sales pitch that the CEO of that WiMax company had given me.

To be fair, it's up to the ISP to secure customers, and it's probably charging a premium for a WiMax service that's not even running at full speed. The businessman said he is only getting a bandwidth of 128Kbps, as opposed to the technology's maximum access speed of 75Mbps.

Yes, WiMax as a technology is great; I can see how it benefits places without reliable infrastructure, or that it gives fixed-line operators a run for their money. But overselling any technology will only serve to amplify its weaknesses and lead to misconceptions.

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Eileen Yu

Eileen Yu began covering the IT industry when Asynchronous Transfer Mode was still hip and e-commerce was the new buzzword. These days, she gets stirred up over issues concerning Internet regulation, intellectual property rights and software patents, online privacy and data protection. Eileen is senior editor at ZDNet Asia, where she oversees the business tech news site.