Yes to WiFi in Singapore, No to WiMAX in Germany

Talk about vision. The government in Singapore this past summer announced a ten-year “digital future” plan (Singapore iN2015) to make the country number one in the world in terms of adding value to the economy and society using what it calls “infocomm” technologies.

InformationWeek, in its September 4, 2006 edition, reported that one of the iN2015 goals, to have connect at least 90 percent of homes up with broadband, is being pursued in conjunction with the efforts of service provider SingTel.

More specifically, the InformationWeek report notes that SingTel hopes to make nationwide WiFi a reality in Singapore by year’s end. That may sound huge, but on its Disrupt-O-Meter (which shows how disruptive various technological developments may be to the market), InformationWeek ranks SingTel’s WiFi plans well below the halfway mark.

Maybe that’s because wide-area WiFi projects seem a dime a dozen these days. Why, just in the past fortnight alone, municipal WiFi plans were announced in Hartford, CT and Riverside, CA. That’s on top of many other cities in recent months to hop on the WiFi bandwagon.

WiFi may be all the rage, but its younger, sexier, more expensive sibling WiMAX—which covers bigger areas—is catching on slowly. An Associate Press report Friday noted that Germany’s Deutsche Telekom has decided not to pursue WiMAX as a way to expand its high-speed Internet services.

That means Deutsche Telekom also won’t be participating in the upcoming German auction for WiMAX spectrum licenses. According to AP, the company said “it has decided to use other technologies to expand its high-speed Internet offering into rural areas.”

I checked Deutsche Telekom’s Web site, and couldn’t find any press releases about its plans to forgo WiMAX, so I’m not sure what other technologies the company plans to use in rural areas. Maybe WiFi?

AP noted in its Friday report that Intel is a big supporter of WiMAX, committing $1 billion during the next five years to the technology for rural areas including part of the U.S. and Brazil. (The company’s CEO also paid a visit last week to India to stump for the technology there, AP reported.)

WiMAX is, however, gaining some momentum in Korea, thanks to Korea Telecom’s plans to use the technology for a wireless network in the capitol city of Seoul, AP said. But for now, it appears that WiFi is the technology of choice in the U.S.

What do you think—is WiMAX worth the extra cost?