636 Access Networks in this band). LMDS is part of a family of wireless communication standards, IEEE 802.16 or commonly known as WiMAX. These standards can provide up to 70 Mb/s of symmetric bandwidth and up to a distance of 50 km. They have a variety of applications, including point-to-point links and portable Internet access. WiMAX can operate in a wide range of frequencies below 66 GHz, including 2.3 GHz to 3.5 GHz in the licensed spectrum and 5 GHz in the public spectrum. A common wireless access technology to the Internet by laptop computers and other personal computing devices is the IEEE 802.11 wireless local-area network technology. It operates in the 2.5 and 5 GHz public spectrum and can provide data rates of about 50 Mb/s. They are limited by a very short range of tens of meters to an access point or "hot spot." These hot spots are often found in airports, coffee shops, restaurants, and hotels. They can be connected to the Internet in a number of ways including WiMAX. Optical fiberless systems using lasers transmitting over free space into the home are also being developed as an alternative approach. These systems can provide about 622 Mb/s of capacity over a line-of-sight range of 200 to 500 m. In the context of the next-generation access network, the two main architectures being considered today are the so-called hybrid fiber coax (HFC) approach and the fiber to the curb (FTTC) approach. The HFC approach is still a broadcast