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I'll probably go out and buy one before long. Despite the expense, the 5GB monthly cap, and the onerous contract terms, the only broadband choices where I live are EVDO and an older wireless system using Alvarion gear. I got my Alvarion setup five years ago and have been gladly paying $44 a month for, at best, 320kbps, using a rooftop parabolic antenna pointed at the nearest tower. I have a laptop with an EVDO setup but still have the Alvarion gear for other household members. I would love to get rid of it.

Aside from people like me who can't get cable or DSL, devices like this work well for occasional users who are more concerned about convenience of installation than blazingly high speeds or the ability to download mountains of data. Clearwire has been selling similar services for quite some time.

The Zillertal Valley in Austria has a 54 MBit/sec WLAN network, that just uses WLAN-antennas on all the mountain tops. The antennas bridge up to 15 mls (25 km), even though they use classic WLAN, just focussed to a beam to the next mountain top. The antennas are mostly from Alvarion (ex BreezeCOM).

I'll second the Tropos mesh statement. Here in Cumberland, MD we're rolling out Wavion WS410 APs...linked back to the core via Alvarion BreezeACCESS VL radios.

http://www.wavionnetworks.com/news/pr/cumberland.h tml
http://www.alvarion.com/solutions/backhaul/product s/breezeaccessvl/
http://www.conxx.net/

Some of us are just paranoid.
So what? It's harder to sniff than cable, ethernet, or dsl.

And besides, most wireless point-multipoint systems do encrypt all traffic or sell the option.

For instance:
http://motorola.canopywireless.com/solutions/isp/
http://www.alvarion.com/bwawimaxnewbreezenetb100/

I'm foaming at the mouth for its widespread introduction into the United States, which seems to be hindered by the 3G providers. It's already available in over a hundred countries, and some countries entire communication infrastructures are being redesigned around breezeMAX solutions. Mexico for example has the largest WiMAX deployment in the world.

Personally I think WiMAX will be a major transformtion of the United States once it hits. It's once of those techs that can't come fast enough.

So from where I sit, WiMAX can't be killed, because it's not alive.

WiMAX is simply a term used to denote appliances which have been certified by the WiMAX Forum
From their FAQ:

"The WiMAX Forum is an organization of leading operators and communications component and equipment companies. The WiMAX Forum's charter is to promote and certify the compatibility and interoperability of broadband wireless access equipment that conforms to the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.16 and ETSI HiperMAN standards"

They have started testing loads of equipment from various manufacturers, as part of their "certification" process. These products should have been certified before the end of the year. Here are some examples:

Siemens "WayMax"
Alvarion BreezeMax

WiMAX is very much alive.

Better make it not causing interference to any PRIMARY LICENSED user of the spectrum where we are secondary users. Note: Amateur radio is primary between 2.39Ghz and 2.45Ghz, and Radiolocation is secondary between 2.417Ghz and 2.45Ghz. Source: US Frequency Alocations Chart http://www.alvarion.com/Runtime/Materials/Knowledg ePoolFiles/C1_FCC_freq_chart.pdf Unlicensed users are always secondary to any licensed user, regardless of frequency.

Anyone with a mass franchise presence suddenly has the potential to power an ISP with a 20 mile range by slapping a $500 antenna on top of their stores.

From the equipment I have seen supporting WiMAX, it is not likely to be an easy or inexpensive proposition like WiFi. Ever wonder why urban areas are littered with cell sites? Coverage is difficult. NLOS is only NLOS to a degree. People will expect coverage inside concrete buildings. (if they don't get it, they'll stick to using GPRS or WCDMA, which do work in concrete buildings)

Then there's interference. Sure the gear is getting smarter, but I wouldn't try to deploy WiMAX in unlicensed space anywhere in the world - it would be a recipe for disaster. In 2.4GHz range outdoor, FHSS systems delivering 2mbps are the last man standing in crowded markets. In 5.8GHz, Trango and Motorola Canopy systems destroy less robust 802.11a systems.

And then there's licensed spectrum. If you do get a hold of some, it's not going to be in big 20mhz channels like in unlicensed territory. I don't care how spectrally efficient these WiMAX systems are, no one is going to get 10mbps per MHz in the real world before 2010.

Why 10mbps/MHz? It's what you'll need to compete with Cable, DSL, and ubiquitous WiFi hotspots (deployed every 50 meters on the end of Cable/DSL lines). Who gives a toss if Intel starts including WiMAX in their chipsets? I've had Thinkpads with infrared for about ten years now. I have a five year old Nokia with Bluetooth. What do I use every day? WiFi.

Y'all should look into Alvarion's 5.8 MHz NLOS system. Bounces right over hills using OFDM, which in itself is a very cool new radio technology. If you're in mountainous country it might be just the thing. You can read about it at the Alvarion site or the Alvarion-USA site.

I did a 21.7 mile shot using Cisco Aironet BR342, Andrew 19dB solid dishes, and YDI
500 mw amps.

I'm a bit embarrased to admit using a wireless LAN product for backhaul work, but some morons overtightened
the patch cable on an Andrew P2F 5.2-5.8 GHz 2' dish hooked to a WiLan AWE-120 5.8 GHz radio and put their link out
of service.

Despite extensive tweaking the link never managed more than analog modem speeds. It helped in recomissioning the UNI band stuff, but was otherwise
useless for hauling traffic.

802.11[bag] is NOT an access product. Take a look at Alvarion's Breeze Access II, or better yet just wait for an
802.16 product meant to do access work.

802.11[bag] is NOT a mobile access product. That market belongs to licensed band products with ISDN like performance offered by cellular companies.
Anecdotal evidence of mobile access to one police department in a town of 12,000 does not equal proof of concept for operation in urban areas; its plain
dumb luck coupled with no competing ISM band ISP(yet).

802.11[bag] is NOT a backhaul product. Backhaul radios are made by WiLan, Redline, Aperto, Proxim, and others. The minimum cost is $2,500 an end just for
the radio, most of them are in the UNI band, the full duplex products are generally split band 5.2/5.7 GHz, and they provide typically eight to ten
mbits for entry level products, unlike 802.11b which NEVER, EVER gets 11 mbits in long shots, with 1 or 2 mbits being the typical rate.

802.11[bag] SHOULD NOT BE DEPLOYED BY MONKEYS. Are you a MoNkEy? If you haven't read Matthew S. Gast's 802.11 book published by OReilly and you
don't fully grok the implications of the shared MAC layer, you are just throwing nuts and filth from the treetops into the already busy ISM band.

Slashdot's coverage of other topics is relatively even. The coverage of radio is focused on 802.11[bag] and this is quite laughable most of the time
to those of us who have actually owned and operated a wireless ISP. Personally I think the editors ought to be giving us a whole lot more information
on ICOM's D-STAR, a 23cm (1.2 GHz) amateur band voice/data system.

There's an explanation of how they intend to achieve this on the site, along with a link to a news release that cites the Swedish Space Corporation's success transmitting data over 310 kilometers using 802.11b.

2Mbps at 1km point p-t-p is not much - we do that at work all the time (I'm working for a wireless ISP).

Linksys WAP11 is one of the worst pieces of HW I have seen (I haven't even looked at the worse ones). You need a trained monkey to monitor it (no SNMP - try using Cricket or MRTG) and have to reboot it once a week. Even if you have the monkey, the box won't tell you anything - no signal strength, no retransmission counter, just the packet counters (at least in version 1.009).

If you intend to build such a link, use either decent FHSS devices (but those are quite expensive), or something like SparkLAN (sorry, no URL, try google) - a friend of mine is using those for 5km 8Mbps links (under ideal conditions, of course). These are about $200 in Slovakia, don't know about US (or Egypt).

It is also better to use high-gain (like 24dBi) antennas - have a look at Andrew. Do not use omnidirectional antennas.

Also try to keep the HF cables as short as possible (the guy could have made them some 2ft shorter) and water-proof your connectors - or your link will go down anytime the rain coes (and will not come up after some months due to rust)

Not sure of the generic solution, but Alverion, Formerly Breezecom sell a solution that allows roaming speeds up to 60MPH. Not sure if it is a technical limit, or one of the lawyers telling them not to advertise anything faster for fear of idiot suits like the ones facing cellphone manufacturers in the coming decade. Yes jurror's my client is an idiot, and yes it was his fault he was eating a big mac while talking on the cellphone in an ice storm, but you must find the cellphone industry responsible of contributory neglegince and award my client 22 million dollars in compensation.

I have two of these, one at home and one at work. Due to their creative billing capabilities, I only pay for one of them. :-) The high cost of end-user equipment is offset by a one-time payment (non-refundable) of ~600 USD. This gives you 5 or 10 meters of high-gain RF cable, a choice of three antenna sizes (medium, large and Mr T), a Breezenet SA-10 Station Adapter and some clamps to put the antenna on your TV antenna pole, chimney, wherever. The monthly fee is $30 for up to 3 Mbps (this is the maximum radiolink bandwidth, you have to be pretty colse to a tower to get that, I typically get 2 at work and 1 at home (longer and there's a tree in the way. Now, where did I put that chainsaw?).

Authentication is done by logging in to a webpage (DNS and traffic within their network works when logged out, but port 80 is basically blocked without the login. This means that I can ssh or do a Terminal Server login from home to work even if both networks are logged out). They log you out for inactivity, but a ping -i 600 wherever.com seems to keep it alive. The DHCP lease is for 24 hours and I have lost my (public) IP three times in a year, all of them due to major maintenance of the login servers.

This all works beautifully, except for Telenordia's inability to manage 24/7 server capabilities. I get some rain fade and snow issues (especially with the large, wet flaky, kind) but no fried sparrows and no other major issues - both my kids have just one head each. :-)

Standard disclaimer: Your bandwidth may vary.