Comments on: Intel WiMax to go live, will devices follow?

Intel's WiMax wireless technology is finally ready to launch, but it's not clear how big a following the technology has among laptop suppliers.

[dbroham77]

Baltimore? how is that a rollout?

[bonesbautista]

A small business owner here. I waited for 18 months for WiMax to hit the street, it's been in "testing" mode here in Portland OR for about that long. No pricing available, no availability date available, SPCS changed their data TOS a few months ago to institute a cap (the 300 MB roaming cap killed it for me). No contracts? - there's no wireless data product to buy.

Sorry Sprint, you've taken too long to get the product out the door - your corporate stores were telling me in May it'll be just a few more weeks. Between tethering, ATTWS & VZ data cards, and WiFi have me covered. I'll see if SPCS and WiMax are still around and relevant in a couple of years when my contracts expire...

[gerrrg]

You are confused. Portland's network was built by Clearwire and is owned by Clearwire.

Reports suggest that it would be at the end of '08 when the agreement closes between Clearwire, Sprint, Google and a bunch of other players. At that point Clearwire will open the Portland network up.

[scottthesculptor]

Sprint is still pushing EVDO and ruining any idea that a faster wireless gets you better internet connection. When I got EVDO 2 years ago I clocked a 1.8Mbps transfer.
Two years later that's below 400k max and worse than that in normal usage.
Sprint then decided to disable my access in order to try and sell me a new contract.
Thats when I told Sprint to take a hike and closed the account.
4G is MOTS

[Squashman2]

I finally got EVDO this year in the City I live in. They finally expanded that out to my house just this past week. I could get it in the city but not out in the suburbs.

[shadowself]

WiMax (even the so called "mobile" variant) has huge issues with either end of the wireless link traveling at more than about 35 mph (56.3 kph) in an urban environment.

It turns out that the MIMO principles used to get such high data rates for static and nearly static terminals at each end work against it when there is a significant differential motion. The problem, as some might guess, is not doppler, but rather doppler dispersion in the different paths of the signals coming in.

The effective throughput drops to virtually nothing at any significant speed.

Thus, in the real world, the suggested "U.S.-based mobile WiMax differs from Wi-Fi in that it is intended as a truly mobile technology that can be used, for example, while traveling in a car, just as cell phones are used." is just not realistic.

[jregina]

If a mobile Wi-Max is not feasible it may be ideal for cell phones. It would force people to focus on driving and if they want to talk, text or browse the internet they should pull off the road.

[gerrrg]

Your 35 mph seems suspicious.

Clearwire did a test where the average speed was 35 mph, but went as high as 55 mph, and they averaged 6.5 Mbps during the 30 minute test around Portland.

'Virtually nothing' and 'significant speed' is like listening to Greenspan talking to Congress about the health of the economy...totally meaningless, without substantiation of numbers and obfuscates the facts.

Given that WiFi and WiMax aren't even the same technology (though both are wireless), and have completely different coverages, you're nuts to even relate the two. I'd need 1000+ WiFi points to cover an area that would take maybe a handful of WiMax antennas. How many antennas would you have to switch when driving? And EVEN when you're switching antennas, reality says that your packet loss is going to be hell of a lot less than WiFi.

[zeke2.0]

I've been waiting for WiMax for a long time. The problem isn't WiMax, the problem is I don't want to use Sprint. There are good reasons they are losing so much market share (absolutely worst customer service of all the carriers for starters).

Hopefully another carrier will come on board or this has little chance to succeed. But, if there is no contract and the true throughput is significantly better than my Verizon wireless broadband (and no 5gig limit), I may check it out when it hits the DC area. Then switch to someone else when possible. (Then spend 3 months trying to get Sprint to stop billing me, hehehe).