Bob Friday, Co-Founder and Chief RF Scientist, Airespace on WiMAX: Supporters of the standard have some very lofty expectations for its potential, making the claims that “802.16 is as important as the Internet itself.” The premise behind this statement is that 802.16 is a technology that promises to enable up to 5 billion people to be connected to the Internet over time. The outstanding question, however, is whether or not the technology can gain critical mass in the industry, moving beyond Intel to gain serious support among service providers, infrastructure providers and other chip manufacturers.