Going the distance. WiMAX Telecom Group, the only multinational operator of WiMAX services in Europe, transmitted live pictures of the World Sailing Championships on the Neusiedlersee in Austria through its wireless broadband Internet connection. Why is this important? Because this sets a new record transmitting live video at ranges of up to 40 kilometers and from moving vessel to WiMAX Telecom in extending its network in the coastal region of Croatia. This news should be of interest not only to boat owners.

WiMAX Telecom says this was the first attempt to send live video footage via WiMAX from a moving vehicle into the Internet: From a yacht moving at 12 knots, pictures of the World Sailing Championship were streamed live, and over a distance of about 40 kilometers. This should be good news for agencies such as the Coast Guard and also for the merchant marine.

For more on the record-setting experiment
-see this report

MORE: Frost & Sullivan says that the introduction of mobile WiMAX, and the expensive roll-out of 3G services in many areas of the world, has created concerns about WiMAX being a direct competitor to 3G. This concern is more pronounced in the Asian region. The combination of 2.5G such as EDGE with WiMAX could be seen as a far less expensive business model compared to the 3G-deployment model. New analysis from F&S finds that the revenue in the WiMAX chip sets industry totaled $18 million in 2005 and projects to reach $257.3 million in 2008. Report.