The promise of Wi-Max is nothing less than high-speed wireless internet practically anywhere you go. Of course, the reality falls short, as it often does, but it still shows itself a worthy successor to normal 3G and wi-fi. This industrious tester zoomed around Baltimore and tested it out in different areas (70% of the city is covered at the moment), finding that speeds were generally on the order of 3-4Mbps, or about 400KB/s. That’s plenty for me, personally, which is good because technical max of 20Mbps probably isn’t going to happen unless you’re perched on the WiMax tower.
Right now you can really only hit up the WiMax in Baltimore, but Sprint is working on dropping another $5bn into the rollout of a nation-wide network. Deep pockets! Maybe Sprint can help with the national debt.
This has a lot of potential – it opens up the possibility of a new internet provider to most everyone in the US as it spreads more. The benefit is that it will create more competition and so hopefully, lower prices. I read the article and liked that they see themselves as a company selling the data connection – voice will be something you can do over it, with VOIP, but the basic service they sell is the data connection.
It’s a lot of freedom to be able to use your connection in any way you’d like. It’s like if we could use the iPhone on a $30/month data plan, and then get voice from someone like Skype, and not have to pay AT&T for a voice plan.
You’re correct, Gupta. I’ve been following the Xohm roll-out in Baltimore and am impressed by the possibilities. In my view, the network will reach its true potential when two things happen: 1) It gets built out completely and works well for most people wherever they may be (pray the money to build it doesn’t run out in these tough economic times); and 2) smartphone and other portable device makers start designing new products that tap the WiMAX network, so you can surf the Web and use Skype flawlessly, and not have to worry about signing a two-year phone contract. (So far, we’ve only seen the Nokia N810 wireless internet tablet.)
Im extremely curious as to the connection speeds possible if we were to use a high gain directional antennae connected to the home routers SMA connections. This technology will certainly be a competitor with the large ISP names such as Verizon. Ive just ordered my modem and will be testing it heavily soon. I will write back with more of my findings as soon as I am able.
So after a few months does anyone have an update of WiMax in Baltimore? Speeds, coverage, service, and hardware?