Clearwire is still launching WiMAX, slowly
We’ve been all over WiMAX since it first started to appear in the U.S. There are few things we like better than broadband everywhere, and WiMAX qualifies, at least once it gets rolled out. We’ve also been hard on the players over how long it’s taking to get WiMAX out in the wild. Good things take time but we don’t like waiting, so you’ll have to forgive us.
Clearwire has confirmed their WiMAX rollout plan for this year and next, and it looks like we might finally see the service outside of Baltimore and Portland. In 2009 they intend to roll out WiMAX in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle. Cities planned to see WiMAX in 2010 are New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Finally, my home town of Houston is on the WiMAX list! This will be something I will enjoy seeing come to fruition and I can’t wait to give it a trial like Kevin did. I wonder why the most populous cities are mostly on the second tier list for 2010?
(via mocoNews)
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Clearwire is in many more cities than just Portland & Baltimore according to their wireless coverage map. Local coverage has been available where I live (Seattle) for about 2 years now.
This just has me perplexed. While Im sure some one has a reason why, but this still sure makes no sense to me. I am in Suburban MD ( Bethesda, about 12 miles from White House right on the Capital Beltway) and have had active service now for 6 Months. David Zatz ( wwww.zatznotfunny.com ) has had service since before me and he is north of me (10-12 mi) in Gaithersburg – Rockville MD area(posted here on JKOTR about his experience, reason I jumped on )I can drive around and most places I go have connectivity, they have Wash DC coverage Maps up. They had everyone hyped up and ready to deploy (allegedly) at the end of Novemeber 2008. Why in the world , with a system that is on (sure maybe not at peak readiness) need to be placed on the 2010 waiting list I just do not know. I guess as long as I am online and working, I should just kick back and enjoy the ride (or should I say “speed”)
Note: I guess, I should be happy that they don’t launch a market that is really not ready and have to read about how crappy WIMAX is. Maybe there is some good out of this :)
I hope WiMax succeeds. We need more competition in the broadband space. And the LTE Tsunami is coming…
I echo Ron P.’s comments. I’ve been sporadically using WiMAX (XOHM-branded) in both Philadelphia and DC since the launch in Baltimore. I really think that with all the money that has gone into XOHM and Clearwire the new rollout plan is pathetic. I thought that one of the great advantages WiMAX had was how much sooner it would be available than LTE, but that lead is going to diminish as Verizon is speeding up its plans.