September 21, 2007
Wimax to be available to 100 million Americans in 2008?
According to Sprint and Clearwire it may very well be so.
Atish Gude, senior VP for Sprint’s WiMax business operations, said the company expected to be in “30ish” U.S. markets by the time Intel releases Montevina next year, covering an area of 100 million people. Montevina is the codename for a chipset that will provide Wi-Fi and WiMax support in notebooks.John Saw, chief technology officerfor Clearwire, declined to say how many markets the company would be in at that time. The company, however, plans to start a 145 square-mile test of WiMax in the Portland, Ore., area this year, making it generally available over a 700 square mile area, which will reach into Vancouver, Wash., next year.
What is most promising about the chatter from Sprint / Clearwire thta Wimax will offer a bigger pipe at a lower price than current broadband services.
Even though WiMax deployment is still in the early stages, Sprint and Clearwire believe they can take a sizable chunk of the wireless Internet by delivering a bigger pipe than wireless carriers at a better price. In addition, surfing the Web on a WiMax network would be the same as on a wired connection at the home or office.
The above statement does put Wimax somewhat at odds with Sprints current offerings and business practices, so I’ll have to be the skeptic and ask - they have talked the talk, but will they walk the walk?
article on Information Week
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