WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
Summary: WiMAX is finally about to arrive in 12 major metros in the U.S., including tech hubs New York and San Francisco. In fact, some customers can even get in on a pre-launch trial.
In the U.S., we've been hearing flowery promises about WiMAX for so long that many in the technology world have taken the attitude of "Wake me up when there's actually service available in the big metros."
Consider this your wake up call -- and you probably won't need to hit snooze more than once.
Up until now, Clearwire's nationwide WiMAX rollout focused on smaller and mid-tier cities. The company says it has deployed WiMAX in 52 markets, but many of those are neighboring markets in the same areas (see full map and list).
However, Clearwire is now preparing to launch its 4G WiMAX service in 12 major metros, including some of the epicenters of the technology world. On Monday, Clearwire stated that it will light up WiMAX in the following cities by the end of 2010:
- New York
- Los Angeles
- San Francisco
- Miami
- Tampa
- Orlando
- Denver
- Nashville
- Minneapolis
- Cleveland
- Cincinnati
- Pittsburgh
In New York and Los Angeles, Clearwire has made enough progress in several areas that it's running a pre-launch promotion for customers in those areas to get WiMAX service for $35/month for the first two months (the standard price is $55).
Sanity check
These fall 2010 WiMAX rollouts are huge for Clearwire. They need to go smoothly, they need to offer substantial speed boosts over 3G in real world usage, and they obviously need to attract a lot of new customers. If those three things happen, then WiMAX could get a foothold in the U.S. market. If not, then it could get overrun by LTE, because Verizon is hot on Clearwire's heels and preparing to start its 4G rollout this fall as well.Verizon LTE is about a year behind Clearwire in its 4G build-out, but it's closing fast. Clearwire has to nail it in the big metros -- especially in New York and San Francisco where most of the tech press is -- in order to start building momentum and wrestle power away from the traditional telecoms.
WiMAX's day is finally about to arrive. Time to wake up and care about it again.
Also read
- Clearwire launches mobile 4G routers and support for Apple devices
- Clearwire announces LTE trials, remains committed to WiMax, too
This article was originally published on TechRepublic.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Wrong cities for roll out?
Clearwire is not worth anything
T Mobile is a life saver, they allow up to 10GB and it replaced Clearwire when ever needed. They won't fail you. Just wonder why T Mob doesn't just become an ISP with its HSPA+ it could make a killing if it offered competitive prices to Clearwire's useless service.
And if it rains, you can just forget your have ISP at all with Wimax, not so with HSPA+.
If T Mob offered an unlimited service for 10 dollars more than Clearwire for a similar speed, you would bet I'd be with them, as it is reliable, Clearwire (Sprint) Wimax is not!
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
On the other hand, foliage and other obstacles are still bad at higher frequencies. T-Mo runs their HSPA/HSPA+ at 1700MHz/2100MHz, so they have a slight advantage in range and penetration over Clear at 2500MHz. The LTE guys, AT&T and Verizon, will blow this away at 700MHz.
But your ultimate functional performance is based on traffic, range, and policy as much as protocol. AT&T is crowded, some of their towers are too far apart, and they cap HSPA at 3.6Mb/s and HSPA+ at 7.2Mb/s.. some cellular modems can't handle more, anyway. Most of the Clear partners cap things at about 10-12Mb/s, T-Mo currently caps HSPA at 7.2Mb/s and HSPA+ at about 21Mb/s.. but you'll never see that performance unless you're very close to the tower and it's not busy, and even at that, not with most HSPA+ devices.
It's not about politics
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
Washington D.C, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and even into Harrisburg are already covered for Clear. That corridor has plenty of influential politicians.
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
Since they already have service in Dallas, Houston and even Chicago, one might agree with you.
Clearwire in Houston
You need to do some homework
And yeah, the "4G" offered by Sprint and Comcast is the same network.
And it's not 4G, yet. The ITU standard for 4G requires 100Mb/s peak downlink to mobile devices, 1000Mb/s peak to stationary nodes. Not there yet on WiMax. Not there yet on LTE, either. In fact, the three Clear providers are delivering roughly 10Mb/s peaks. T-Mobile is beating them with HSPA+ (they cap it at 21Mb/s), at least when you're standing next to the tower.
And they have some issues. Bandwidth isn't one of them... Clear et al have about 90MHz of spectrum in most areas. So they aren't likely to get overloaded. But unfortunately, it's at 2500MHz, so it's much shorter range than the LTE plans. They also have deal with WiMax's issues, specifically, the high crest factor of their uplink... this eats power.
LTE was designed as an improvement over WiMax, and solves this with a new modulation protocol for uplink. Yes, Verizon's behind right now, since they haven't turned it on yet. They're planning to go hot in over 40 cities before the end of the year... we'll see. Last year, it was "summer 2010". AT&T is doing likewise, "summer 2011". They're both on 700MHz... Verizon has 22MHz worth, AT&T has 12MHz worth. But that's sweet spectrum... it isn't blocked by trees and rain, and not as much by buildings, versus 2500MHz. And the LTE protocol will be better on battery life when you're uploading.
Wake me up when there?s actually service available somewhere.
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.
RE: WiMAX is getting ready for its big leap in the U.S.