What is WiMax?

as the title states.. what is wimax?

 

A wireless protocol for mainly last mile wireless broadband...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX

It is not really useful at the moment.

 

Jaredy, I have two questions. When do you believe it will become useful? Do you believe that fact that ISP's haven't yet developed a way to implement it like Wifi is the reason it's being held up by Intel? Every time I check, it seems the date for its mass release is being pushed back.

 

But it does work. It's what I'm using at this moment in Kabul where fixed phone lines are a rarity and WiMax is the alternative to having a satellite connection. Conveniently, there's a big hill in the middle of the city and it is covered with antennae for various services.

John

 

That's encouraging. I've been waiting for its release here in the U.S. for a while now.

 

so if i'm connected via Wifi/ethernet all the time and only use my laptop like that. wimax is useless? in lamens terms, what does it do?

 

Sorry I was speaking from a US implementation perspective. As you might know the industry and some cities/businesses have been trying to push the various types of mass scale wireless solutions, but have ran into unsuccessful terms (business models), or backing out of cities at the last minute. Basically in the US the implementation is not there.

I figure in the next couple years hopefully there will be one major successful roll out in the US.

 

so as of right now, all wimax hardware/software is useless in the USA?

 

lol, i have n never use. what's the point of having wimax... but yea for future proof.

 

Xohm, Sprint's Wimax offering is rolling out. Reports out of Baltimore that it's really good. $50 a month, two devices, unlimited data. They have home stations and laptop cards.

 

Cool, hopefully that will be a trend.

 

That's awesome; I can't wait until they have it here. Can you get a Xohm plan without buying one of Sprint's voice plans? Then I could get an Android phone and use Xohm with it and my T400.

 

$50 a month to use the internet anywhere in the city? That's not too bad.

 

how fast is the connection in Baltimore? I think I would miss my 15mb line...

 

It isn't meant to be a replacement of your regular hard line . It is more for having another means of broadband in the city region or for those in areas with no hard lines.

 

Completely separate from Sprint voice plans and cell phone technology. It's not for voice, only high speed data.

You can also pay per day (I think it's 9.95). So it's basically pay-as-you-go, or monthly (no contracts.) This is exactly the pricing model customers want.

Go to the Xohm website, punch in a Baltimore zip code, and you can see all the details.

 

$50 a month, unlimited use, anywhere in their network. And that includes two devices (either two laptops, two home stations (ex. replaces DSL/cable modem), or one of each.)

Not as fast as a cable modem, but supposedly as fast or faster than DSL (which is plenty quick for all mobile users and many home users.)

 

According to some reports, it's about 3.6Mbs to 7.1 Mbsp down, and 400K to 2.1Mbs up, depending on signal strength.

Sure, it won't replace FIOS or Cable modem, but it's still **** good, and would be awesome on a mobile laptop (and faster than most wifi hotspots)

It's 4G, so as AT&T struggle with just getting first generation 3G out there, Sprint is "sprinting ahead".

I know people knock Sprint, but their network, technology and pricing related to data is tops.

 

That's better than my AT&T DSL line ;/

 

Yeah, Sprint is awesome but they finally caved like the rest of the network providers (other than T-Mobile, which has abysmal service in most areas) and limited their high-speed 3G (or more appropriately, 3.5G) Internet to 5 gigabytes a month combined traffic. I can no longer sit there and stream TV from Orb or listen to FLAC all day without coming very near their new cap. Now it's turned into nothing more than something I turn on when I check my E-Mail, or have to connect via VPN or secure shell when I'm in transit to somewhere. Verizon is the one that started the mobile download limit trend, offering "Unlimited" data but small printing "within reason". I worry that when WiMax deploys it'll be awesome for a few months, then change to limited bandwidth based on "average usage statistics".

 

I really doubt these will be enforced. A couple fools running Bittorents 24/7 might get dinged, but most will not.

I have d/l many, many, gigs a month with no issues on Sprint (and AT&T). I have some machines connected 24/7 to wireless broadband for a long time, and nary a peep from the providers.

 

Think of Wimax as a "city-wide" hot spot with the CHOICE of either monthly service contracts OR a per day fee. It is Sprint's solution to "4G" versus everyone else going towards LTE.

Currently only "officially" available in Baltimore however it is working in other cities where they are testing. Currently the next cities on the roll out list are Chicago (whoohoo for me) and D.C.

www.xohm.com for more

 

Other countries are certainly ahead of the U.S. in terms of adopting WiMax. In Korea for example WiMax was rolled out by Korean Telecom back in Summer of 2007. So large cities such as Seoul are covered. They actually call it WiBro -- though it is WiMax. Baltimore is the only city in the U.S. right now offering WiMax, and this was just rolled out a few weeks ago so the jury is still mostly out on how that's going.

 

Yes, everyone is moving to LTE, but quite frankly, given telco's history in the US. we won't see that full rolled out until 2013 (I know the rosey estimates are 2010). Heck. AT&T just start 3G within the past year or so, and they have a long way to go on that.

Sprint has nationwide 3G now, and it's way faster than AT&T.
By the end of next year Wimax (4G) will be in all most major markets.
I'd rather have that now than wait for LTE.

 

don't support wimax!! they'll blackbox it like Australia is doing. So much easier to monitor the flow of information and to have your security breached by wifu'ers which i guess they'll be called maxfu or something.

 

Yeah, internet in the US is pathetically slow and cell phone networks are pretty bad too. It's no surprise that Korea has such a good WiMax network; they've got some of the fastest residential internet connections as well. According to Wikipedia, Pakistan has the world's largest WiMax network. Maybe if there were a little government oversight of the telecom industry in the US things would be better...but that's never going to happen