Nextel Jumps into Wide-Area Wireless Broadband

Atryn writes "Nextel Communications appears to be entering the world of wireless wide-area broadband technology. A new site showed up today describing their market level trial of Flash OFDM technology. Using a PCMCIA Type II modem card in your laptop or a tethered modem, you can have speeds of 1.5 Mbps (bursting to 3 Mbps) downstream and 375 Kbps (bursting to 750 Kbps) upstream as described here. They also appear to be seeking seeking trial participants, who, when selected, will get the technology free of charge! Of course, you need to be in North Carolina."

Comments

Low latency

[Space cowboy]

Also important is the low latency of the service. I've tried one of the high-latency ones (satellite based), and it's really not worth it - good for downloading large files, and for web-browsing, but useless for interactive use.

No-one ever seems to mention the latency though, just the bandwidth...

Simon

sounds like a cool idea

[rock_climbing_guy]

I'd like to see this in action. It would be great if they could use this technology to reach customers that other broadband companies won't touch. If not, just having them for price competition should be nice. Then again, there is the portability feature.

I wonder if they'll try to squeeze money out of us by charging us for "romaing?" Also, I'm sure that privacy advocates will be concerned about the ability of Nextel or any other provider to track their customers and that information will inevitably be shared with the FBI, et al.

Ahem... aren't they the last to join the party?

[ChaosMt]

I know a guy working through his MBA, sitting in class hooked up to the net wireless through through Verizon Wireless. He's getting a minumum of 144kbps both ways most of the time. Considering that most of the US and world is connected vi dial up, that a bit improvement. He says it works well in most areas, but it has trouble if you're moving, such as while on the train. He said he does get the burst speeds in many situations, but the average speed is quite acceptable (and he's used to a oc-3). Cingular has this too, as well as, Sprint and At&t wireless. The nextel specs cliam to be high, as the other web sites I cites also make their claims, and they all charge premium prices for this service. Given Nextel's pricing, this will also be at a premium rate.

I just don't understand how the last big name to get in the game is considered news. Was their hyped numbers are bigger than the other hyped numbers? Or was it just general ignorance about the market.

security - wormy words

[josecanuc]

Check out their "Features" list under the Personal category at http://www.nextelbroadband.com/pu_features.html

Security:
Nextel Wireless Broadband(TM) is as secure as DSL or Cable. In addition, it is a broadband access network based on a proprietary signal processing technology operated over licensed spectrum. Designed across multiple layers, the broadband system prevents unauthorized entities from gaining network access. Depending upon your needs, additional security layers can also be enabled through VPN clients for secure corporate access or SSL for secure Internet transactions. With Nextel Wireless Broadband(TM), you can unwire the Internet and connect to all of your favorite VPN/SSL-secured applications - with confidence.

I find it amusing. They say that is it secure because it's proprietary technology on a licenced radio service so no one can "gain unauthorized network access". I have several radios and scanners that can certainly receive frequencies that this operates on, if not transmit as well. One does not have to "gain unauthorized network access" just to listen.

The closing sentence basically says "enjoy our service but take your own precautions about secure access."

I'm not saying it's insecure (what is secure, truly!?). I do take a dislike to the reassurance of security with the disclaimer that any security should be provided by yourself buried in the rhetoric.