Greater Windy City of Wireless Broadband
Damn, the Chicago area is getting to be the hot zone for new wireless broadband plans. Last week the Chicago Tribune wrote that EarthLink and AT&T are bidding to build city-wide Wi-Fi networks. Sprint has already picked the city for one of its WiMAX launch cities.
Now Nortel wants in on a WiMAX action too, though they are staying away from the windy city, and focusing on the cities that lie within the greater Chicago-area. (Take that Motorola!)
The planned deployment is actually 170 miles west of Chicago, so there won’t be competition per se. But the Canadian telecom gear maker wants to build a WiMAX network for the Moline Dispatch Publishing Company over the Quad-Cities region of western Illinois and eastern Iowa, including Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa and Moline/East Moline and Rock Island in Illinois. A Nortel spokesperson said the WiMAX deployment wouldn’t compete with Sprint’s WiMAX network in Chicago.
The deployment is small, but Nortel has been betting on WiMAX as a way to turn around its business. Nortel hasn’t picked up any business from Sprint so far. Nortel says it has WiMAX deals with Chunghwa in Taiwan and Craig Wireless in Greece, and is working on trials with Golden Telecom in Russia, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) in Japan, and Telefónica Móviles in Mexico.
But back to Chicago and wireless: what makes it so special that most of these companies are doing their trials there?
Interestingly, way back in the AMP days, it was the first market launched. Given that, for years they had the highest penetration of cellular. I can’t imagine it’s a hold over from that, but it’s interesting they should still have a fond spot in their heart for wireless.
Chicago is flat. Makes it easy.
Chicago is windy — waves go further!
(p.s. we got modjo)
People in Chicago are relatively tech-savvy and almost everyone I know has high speed broadband. The rates are also low – I pay about $17/month for 3 Mbps access via ATT. Every year, I get to double my speed and reduce my rates. I think a lot of people forget the number of tech start-ups in Chicago too. Om – how about an article on that?
The Quad-Cities are not in the greater Chicago Area. We are 2 1/2 hours away. That is like saying Orlando is in the greater Tampa area or San Diego is in the greater Los Angeles area.
I just received the Sprint card for the MAC. Absolutely effortless in downloading the software and installation. Works like a charm. Billing is a bit funky – 40mb @ $40/mo. $80/mo is unlimited. Trying it for 60 days, so far very, very good……
P.S. It’s “greater Chicagoland area”.
We have our ways.