Casa Flores in Cala Egos - near Cala D'or Mallorca: June 2011

New for 2011, the Marina D'or III complex of quality holiday rental homes is connected to high speed wireless broaband using the WiMAX service.

This new service replaces the previous older, less reliable and slower WiFi service provided via a community access-point sharing a centralised Vodafone G3 network connection and router.

The new system consists of a central antenna receiving the main signal transmitted using the area using the WiMAX system (the acronym meaning "Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access), then repeated across the complex and into the 20 houses via WiFi Repeaters and individual encryped security keys.

This new service has been eagerly awaited by the owners and holiday makers for some time as Telefonica have for some years been promising but failing to deliver landline based ADSL type broadband.

As the new installation provides a standard WiFi signal, the broadband Internet service can be used by computers, laptops, PDA's and Smartphones allowing holiday guests to stay in touch with home, business, friends etc. with eMail, Social networks like Facebook, and also with free phone calls using VoIP and Skype etc.

For those with a technical interest, below is a little additional information on WiMAX, this was reproduced from "WiMax.com - 4G Wireless Broadband Solutions":

WiMAX is an IP based, wireless broadband access technology that provides performance similar to 802.11/Wi-Fi networks with the coverage and QOS (quality of service) of cellular networks. WiMAX is also an acronym meaning "Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX).
WiMAX is a wireless digital communications system, also known as IEEE 802.16, that is intended for wireless "metropolitan area networks". WiMAX can provide broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 - 10 miles (5 - 15 km) for mobile stations. In contrast, the WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).
With WiMAX, WiFi-like data rates are easily supported, but the issue of interference is lessened. WiMAX operates on both licensed and non-licensed frequencies, providing a regulated environment and viable economic model for wireless carriers.
At its heart, however, WiMAX is a standards initiative. Its purpose is to ensure that the broadband wireless radios manufactured for customer use interoperate from vendor to vendor. The primary advantages of the WiMAX standard are to enable the adoption of advanced radio features in a uniform fashion and reduce costs for all of the radios made by companies, who are part of the WiMAX Forum™ - a standards body formed to ensure interoperability via testing. The more recent Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard is a similar term describing a parallel technology to WiMAX that is being developed by vendors and carriers as a counterpoint to WiMAX.

There is also a good and thorough Wiki entry in Wikipedia: WiMAX Wikipedia