The Role of WiMAX Technology in Distributed Wide Area Monitoring Applications

The Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), provides wireless broadband services on the scale of the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). This technology can provide fast and cheap broadband access in areas that lack infrastructure such as rural areas, unwired countries and disaster recovery scenes where the wired networks have broken down. Very often Wireless Sensor Networks are used in these areas to monitor the environment, to prevent natural disasters or to aid rescue operations. WiMAX can serve as a backbone for integrating specialized sensors subnetworks and for connecting the WSN to the data processing center. Alternatively, users can connect mobile devices such as laptops and handsets directly to WiMAX base stations. The information coming from the WSNs can be distributed to the users: a user may be using a wireless videophone, a laptop or a PDA to access data while also dynamically interacting with the remote server by means of additional content uploading regarding a monitored area.