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Sprint Rolls out WiMAX Access
Tokin84 writes "Today, Sprint announced that it would pour over $4.5Bn into a 2.5Ghz WiMAX system to be rolled out across the country. From the article: 'Sprint Nextel, the nation's largest holder of radio spectrum in the precious 2.5 GHz band, has reportedly chosen to deploy Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access (WiMAX) as the foundation of its technology platform for the carrier's mobile broadband Next-Generation Network (NGN) build-out.'"
How about fibre-to-the-curb or even better, to my demark point instead. Wireless is nice, but I spend 90% of my on-line time connected to a wire.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
"4G" "NGN" "WiMAX" "UMTS-based technology dubbed TD-CDMA" "Flash-OFDM" Nice load of acronyms, that's $4.5Bn invested.
I for one welcome our new Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology platform foundation mobile broadband Next-Generation Network (NGN) build-out 4G overlords.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Buying up our spectrum like this installs a natural monopoly that is inefficient.
p a=showpage&pid=37t ml
A better system would be for public/gov to create a network of towers for wimax/wifi.
I BETYA SPRINT WILL MAKE WIMAX REALLY AFFORDABLE FOR EVERYONE !!!!
http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&
http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/OpenSpectrumFAQ.h
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_spectrum
"This is very positive for the space as a whole," said Daniel Meron, analyst at RBC Capital Markets.
I have never felt more confident after that statement.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
thisnukes4u.net
A better system would be for public/gov to create a network of towers for wimax/wifi.
You mean you don't see this as a salvo in the public/private WiFi battle?
"Senator Claghorn here, and I most strenuously, I say strenuosly protest the people's tax dollars bein' spent competing with this fine company. I say we shut down the government funded public service and give the money back to the other porkbarrel projects it was so wrongly taken from. Now excuse me, I have a golf outting this afternoon with some fine corporate gentlemen."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I wouldn't want our government owning that stuff.
James Taylor
(No, I'm not related. However, I am on the no-fly list)
Great. So now we'll have Sprint/Nextel using WiMax on 2.5ghz, Verizon using CDMA on 850/1900mhz, Cingular using UMTS/HSPDA on 850/1900/2100mhz, and TMobile using GSM 1900mhz. Why can't we be like Europeans and just settle on one wireless technology?
This is very likely going to cause even more problems for the environment. Anyone care to comment on the recent heatwave that has swept the planet within the past month? Record temperatures on every part of the globe. With the worldwide deployment of WiMax, we'll be dumping even more energies into the environment that don't belong there. This isn't just AM or FM radio we're talking here. We're talking microwaves. The VERY SAME energy that's used to cook your food in a microwave oven! All we're doing is turning the planet into one big Amana Radar Range and global temps will skyrocket to new extremes of both hi and lo temps.
We've already done tremendous and very ironic damage with air conditioning. In our interest of keeping our working and living spaces comfortably climate controlled we forgot one thing: thermal energy is like water. If you take heat from one space and pump it out, it has to go somewhere. We've been using ACs in our houses, our cars, and businesses, and god knows where else to pump the heat out. Well, where does all that heat go? Into the outside air. And what happens when you pump water into the outdoors? You make ponds, lakes and oceans. Same thing with heat, only worse. All that heat is now coming back to get us. But, even more irony... because it's getting hotter out there, we're using our ACs more than ever before and pumping MORE heat out! I predict that by 2015, the typical summer temps on the equator will be 180F. They're already averaging about 140F and that's up from the relatively cool 95F they used to be back in the 70s. We've got a huge problem folks and WiMax is only going to make it worse. Stop them before it's too late.
Oh... and the internet is a series of tubes.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Yes, plus it would make it easier for the government to filter content and eavesdrop on its citizens. Sounds wonderful.
State-sponsored monopolies have been used successfully in the past. I would prefer my communications not to be owned by the government.
Riiiiight. The phone companies are our good buddies. They are so consumer friendly and would never lie & cheat us.
Other ideological considerations aside, replacing a corporate monopoly with a government monopoly does not efficiency create. Government failures can easily be far worse than market failures.
Sprint should focus on better customer support (what they have now is piss poor) and better phones. I am stuck in a 2 year contract with a 3.5 year old phone. If I choose to upgrade the phone for a $50-$75 credit, I get reamed with another 2 year contract. In a few months when the contract is up, Sprint gets flushed, will they give a rats ass, not likely. Just another number they can bash...
Would there have been an internet without gov help ?
Do you believe the phone companies loved cannibalizing their own product ?
I love getting nickel and dimed by the jackal phone co's for web access.
Sure, the spectrum is licensed, but is that really going to prevent people from hacking devices to use the spectrum in ways not sanctioned by Nextel? Besides, the range of WiMAX is such that one will be able to wardrive without leaving home (in some areas). And once the price of WiMAX modems comes down, thanks to Nextel/Clearwire/etc., who will still want to use WiFi? All that unlicensed WiFi spectrum will become WiMAX spectrum--and will be used a whole lot more efficiently.
Nothing has been 'rolled out' yet! It's been announced that they've decided to roll it out in the future. But is it not currently rolled out, nor is it in the process of rolling out. This is like going back in time a year and saying Vista has been rolled out...
I agree completely. I also think things like cable/power lines/water pipes/roadways, basically any network system that requires use of eminent domain should belong to the people (ie the government).
The end points and suppliers should all be non-government (with the possible exception of water as thats is a natural resource). To bad there isn't a common-sense party that is largely libertarian but uses common sense and acknowledges where the government is useful (or should be useful).
I don't like the mere SOUND of Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access (WiMAX). Maybe THIS is what's causing global warming. Better keep those microwave meals in the freezer!
"Riiiiight. The phone companies are our good buddies. They are so consumer friendly and would never lie & cheat us."
Riiiight. Government entities are our good buddies. They are so citizen friendly and would never lie & cheat us.
Companies are nothing but a group of people (yes, real human beings like me and maybe you) that are all working towards comon goals that will hopefully produce a profit. These humans include stock holders, board members, directors/managers, and employees/volunteers. There is nothing *evil* about a company, so don't try and personify it.... this also goes for gov't entities. I've worked for numerous organizations in both the private (F500s to mom & pops) and public (local, state & fed) sectors and it is my strong opinion that there are many-MANY more bad practices/deals/etc in public sector organizations than private ones.
Now, do I agree with Sprint owning this spectrum? No... but I wouldn't agree to a gov't entity owning it either. Do you want your provider to have the efficiency of the USPO? I sure the hell don't.
Gee, how nice that they're going to offer WiMax. Meanwhile, my window-facing cube in an office building downtown gets 1 bar, if I'm lucky. Sprint's ability to manage the calls it already has is horrific - how does this help? New frequency, same crappy coverage?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Great, now I'll be able to check myspace from anywhere at blazing fast 4G speeds!
On a more serious note, a unified Wimax and the ubiquitous and mobile high speed data it will provide will revolutionize society as we know it. I'm just sayin is all..
Sprint didn't "roll out" anything. They announced their intent to spend money to do so.
Huh.. reading this made me realize that wireless isn't going to change anything..
One of the major complaints about the telecom industry is how it is controlled by a natural monopoly -- that is, there are only so many physical fibers that can be distributed around the country. It means you can't have competition: A competing telecom company can't just tear up the streets and install their own lines to compete with big business.
So we've always been told that wireless will change all that.. as soon as WiMAX is available, suddenly we won't be restricted to physical lines! We'll be able to run community networks and municipal public internet access.
But then.. this article reminds me that of course the people who will be installing all the wireless access points are going to be the big telecom companies. They'll still be the ones charging for access. And there is only so much bandwidth to go around... much less, in fact, than what is available on the wires. So as long as companies like Sprint jump in and take it first, no one will be able to compete.
Sad to see that wireless won't be "the answer" to cheap and available telecom.
The answer is "who knows" but government help isn't the same as government ownership.
I think government involvement is essential to the buildout of infrastructure. Otherwise a large portion of the population won't be served. I don't believe government ownership of the infrastructure is in our best interests, and that's something that's consistently believed in the US but not always in other countries. The US accomplished these things through granted monopolies, regulation, subsidies and mandates.
"Would there have been an internet without gov help ?"
I would bet that an infinite number of universities with an infinite number of researchers doing an infinite number of networking experiments (with an infinite number of generous alumni) could create something similar to the modern Internet.
this goes hand-in-hand with "HOW ABOUT YOU INSTALL IT IN MY AREA" -- as it is, i'm lucky to have two cell carriers to choose from, neither one of which offers any high-speed data option. (the fact that existing offerings are overpriced is, as they say, an entirely separate problem.)
I understand your concerns, but sorry, I don't see "the public" investing a $4.5B network and have a shot at making it effective, not in the US. Maybe the Fed or many of the states might spend $45B combined and still make it a worthless piece of trash. At least with WiMax, there can be competitors using other spectrum.
WiFi is not good for connectivity, it is way too short-range, especially if one county needs 60,000 radios (like in the county Ann Arbor, MI is in) to make such a sufficient mesh to cover all the land area. That doesn't make for a good nationwide network, especially if you multiply that by 3,141 counties.
Maybe WiMax won't really work, but I don't think WiFi is effective either. With WiMax, they can use a good amount of power, combine it with a bunch of sector antennas to divide the user base (like standard cell towers) so fewer towers can handle the same or more users.
Personally, I'm skeptical of the "Open Spectrum" ideology. Maybe if they demonstrate or diagram the physics in actual implementation detail without handwaving arguments, I can consider it.
Fibre to the home is cool, but totally unneeded for 99% of people. Chances are you already had a coax line into yoru house. Do you have any idea the theoretical bandwidth you can shove down a coax cable? It's in the Gbps. There are already existing ISPs that sell 30Mbps over coax.
The problem is all the spectrum is being hogged up with the analog cable channels. The cable companies are itching to get rid of these - once the price point is low enough on set top boxes so they can give them for free to anyone who needs them, you're going to see available bandwidth over coax explode.
The coax pipe is very thick. It is not as thick as a fibre pipe, but it is more than enough to be able to drive all the HD streams and internet porn you could ever want.
isn't that the point in having a different frequency? different ranges, penetration, etc...
for a minute there, i lost myself...
the fiber infrastructure buildout that was paid for with 200 Billion-with-a-B taxpayer dollars will be ready? What's that you say, not ready yet and you need more money? Gee, where could you find some? I have no idea... ooh look shiny new wimax towers!
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
There are already existing ISPs that sell 30Mbps over coax.
Where, what's rent like, and do I have to learn a new language or wear funny hats?
Oh, and can you acutally USE it for more than a couple of days without going over your limit for the month?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
There goes Flash OFDM. Will it ever see the light of day? Dont think so.
Qualcomm definately missed a trick regarding the standards. The times had changed.
Why in the summary is there a Bn after the dollar amount? Wouldn't $4.5B be sufficient? Is there another abbreviation for a large number that starts with a B and doesn't end in an n?
Sprint can come up with a network that functions like it is supposed to. Where I live, Sprint was the local phone company (until the merger with Nextel). They also built a new cell tower that I should have been getting full signal strength from, except they forgot to activate it. When they were finished with the tower, they basically didn't connect it to the rest of the network. Their diagnostics showed that it was functioning so they didn't believe me when I called them that my cell didn't work. They had to send out a technician to "flip the switch". I don't see a new network being any different/better.
Is this artcle:
a) News For Nerds
b) Stuff That Matters
c) an infomercial
d) all of the above
Sigh uspo is the worst example in this situation, due to history etc. In the corporate case all people are working toward a common goal, making more money, as much money as possible for the owner(s) i.e dodge v ford. Now in a gov the goal is to serve the people. Granted if the people dont keep the govt in check it goes to a chaotic system, which is usually much worse than a corporation.
I'm all for the public, free use of the radio spectrum, but what makes you think that the government would do a better job?
...of conducting massive surveillance, logging and recording everything that passes thru a wireless network infrastructure if they build and run all the towers and backhauls.
I'm just saying that I would trust private enterprise over any government. And that goes for whomever is in office at the time. Smaller gov't is better gov't in my opinion.
James Taylor
(No, I'm not related. However, I am on the no-fly list)
For those of you who say that a glabal standard isn't possible because Sprint controls the spectrum, think again. Like someone else said, the technology can run on a multitude of different frequencies. "So what? Sprint will lock you into using their service by making you use their hardware that runs on theirs ond only their network," you may say. "Nothing will change from how it is today." Well, if you didn't know, Intel will be integrating WiMAX into Centrino. Now it is highly doubtful Intel would be so foolish as to lock themselves into a single market that isn't accessible in all areas. This means that WiMAX will be "unlockable" kind of like how GSM phones are today. Which is also why GSM is the global standard. And WiMAX is already being deployed in many countries around the world, not just the US.
I wouldn't be surprised to see WiMAX/CDMA/GSM triband phones/cards popping up in the not so distant future.
The current wireless providers cancel accounts when people actually use them; the boards are littered with EVDO users complaining that, for example, Verizon axed them when their throughput hit 10 gigs a month. Heck, even Consumer Affairs got shafted.
Will there be similar limitations on WiMax? Without a reasonable TOS, I'd turn it down.
But the spectrum isn't a like a truck that can drive down the freeway, it's really more like a buch of tubes....
I've got the razr + bluetooth headset, all this thing needs is a little phased array radar and it's a tricorder. That would be so cool!
We got wireless wimax a la motorola canopy service and it's quite good-as long as it isn't heavy storming out, then it drops to dismal, so I have kept my landline and dialup connection as a backup. But seeing as how it has taken me since the mid 90s to now to get ANY broadband, I love it! It's a cinch that in areas not currently served by conventional broadband,(roughly still half or more the geographical area of the US) you are going to be waiting between a LONG time until never to have any of the big companies run you good copper or coax or fiber, so, wireless broadband is where it's at. So maybe sometime soon we'll have even more competition and prices will drop and speeds go up! I think a good rule of thumb is look to where satellite Tv is common-those are the areas probably not served by any broadband yet. It's a huge potential market out there, and wireless appears to be the only cost effective market solution. Satellite internet for the extreme boonies, small scale boonies wimax, every place else ya'all already got some choices most likely with wires or fiber or shortrange 802.11 stuff.
When did they move BFE to the States? Or has Idaho moved to the Middle East?
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I've got my money on an infinite number of monkeys banging on an infinite number of staples "easy" buttons creating an infinite number of nobel peace prizes that are each an infinite times better than the ones we've currently got...all the while creating an internet better than what we got today.
In fact, I'll give you infinite to one odds.
When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
This is the telecom industry you're talking about. It's like a school for inefficiency and bureaucracy.
If the choices are government or a telco we're already screwed.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
Without RF being split and regulated, we would be at the mercy of "the kid next door" broadcasting his own video blog on whatever frequency he chooses, including, yes, your local TV stations. Technically, he doesn't even have to broadcast over the TV frequencies in use. If the frequency is close enough and he puts out enough power, ingress will occur and you still won't be able to watch your TV. Hell, enough power and he could turn your cable line into an antenna and then you'd really be crying.
I haven't seen this recently, but I remember hearing CB over regular FM radio channels while taking long road trips with the family. It wasn't until much later that I learned that these guys were using huge linear amps to boost their signals quite a few magnitudes beyond the regulated wattage. In addition to seeing these "mega" CB radios, I've watched someone running a rogue ham station do stupid things with his setup. Needless to say, less than a year later he was caught and fined heavily. I lost contact with him after that...
Oh, as for belonging to the public. Get a ham license and play all that you want. There is quite a bit that can be done, including data networking over ham.
If it makes you feel any better the Sprint employees couldn't get Sprint signal on the campus for years. I think they built a tower in the middle of the campus to fix that.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
I know it's simple to do that, but is i legal? Brobably not, it will be tha same as you using youre nabors cordles phone base to du youre calling. IIRC it is eliegal tu utelise someones resources withot ther prior concent.
So how many billion do you think the US. Treasury netted from selling this spectrum to the highest bidder? If the government were to make Wimax public, it would lost all of this revenue, plus having the expense of building the network themselves.
Face it, these things cost _money_. If you had the money, you could do it yourself. It just happens that big telecom is the only private entity with the money/wherewithall to do it. Otherwise, get ready for the good ol' taxpayer to foot 3x the bill for a supposedly "free" network. And then what do we have, another fiscal boat anchor on the federal government for the next 20 years.
K
Keep in mind that Wimax does not require a cell tower every mile, and is not subject to the constant local environmental asessments of having cell towers everywhere. A single tower can broadcast as far as 30 miles in all directions. In most remote areas of the globe they are finding it much cheaper to deploy Wimax than to fork over the exorbitant costs of laying cable. As long as the microwaves don't fry everyone, we may eventually find it so much cheaper to use Wimax that internet service will become so low cost that everyone will have it...everywhere. No more people digging up our lawns to lay cable and cutting your sewer lines. No more destruction of endangered owl habitats for a new cell tower, and no more need for deploying WiFi in your house, which could very well be pumping more radiation to yourself and your neighbors than Wimax will be doing. Best of all, no more paying for WiFi service at Starbucks when you are already paying for it at home!!
The FCC said no!
All you got was a near useless low power set.
In 1984 Apple Computer petitioned the FCC for what is alot like WiMAX,
A 10k to 15k network adaptor.
But AT&T and others sweet talked the FCC out of the deal.
Since this would by pass the local telco monopoly.
So now you are going to pay for your access to
the airwaves, its a lot like paying for your freedom of speech.
Sounds like its time to start dumping Tea in the harbor boys.
The wireless phone industry is under the thumb of Qualcomm's monopolistic patents hold over the technology they depend on.
The wireless phone industry is also staring down the barrel of a possible future WiMax revolution completely obsoleting all the existing GSM and CDMA networks when WiMax VoIP handsets becoming the norm, and a billion tiny VoIP provider companies will be trying to make the cellphone giants irrelevant in a new world if widespread deployment of ubiquitous WiMAX public Internet comes to fruition. Mark my words, the giants will resolve at any costs to try to prevent that from happening.
Who knows what exactly will transpire in the coming wireless future...
Correct. The sensible approach would be to limit signal strength by statute in much the same way that building height is regulated, for example. Then let the market figure out how to best use the spectrum available.
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
"This is the telecom industry you're talking about. It's like a school for inefficiency and bureaucracy. It's like a school for inefficiency and bureaucracy."
;).
OK I agree, but ask yourself why the telecom industry is full of inefficiency and bureaucracy. It's the same reason that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are full of inefficiency and bureaucracy here in the US. IMHO it is due to government/political involvement and the lack of consumer/voter action. We can't blame a "company" for problems... it's just a "company" filled with mostly descent people like OSTG
I believe that we need an outside (maybe international) non-profit and non-industry based organization to take care of rf regulation. The fees for licensing would go to developing new technology and supporting the new org instead of pouring back into the government FCC bureaucracy.
Like Enron, Worldcom and Microsoft.
Cell phone companies are crooks.
Because fiber will always be potentially faster. :)
Wireless is great for mobile applications, limited user base, and for broadcast style systems.
It is ideal for one transmitter and many receivers. WiMAX will be great for mobile and remote users. Even good for point to point links. I would rather have fiber in my home and office
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I have sprint pluged a usb cable into my new pad synchronized with laptop load driver install sprint dialer place pda in wireless modem mode fire cox.
Cablevision is infamous for their bandwidth capping. If you saturate your upsteam connection for a few hours or sometimes even a few minutes, you can get slapped with bandwidth restrictions.
I get webpages fast enough. All I care about is server and P2P capabilities. I'm better off with cheap DSL since I'm actually allowed to use it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
How the hell did this get modded +4 Insightful? To me, it reads as the logical equivalent of "I'm all for the public, free use of the radio spectrum, but what makes you think that the government would do a better job? This apple is tasty."
Seriously, the second sentence in the parent is a total non-sequitur.
Note that the primary supplier is Samsung telecommunication USA (a US subsidy of Samsung electronics). What Samsung will supply is not WiMax but its home-grown WiBro. The news that Samsung cut a deal with Sprint-Nextel for WiBro made a headline in Korean newspapers today.
"Now in a gov the goal is to serve the people."
Sigh, maybe in a perfect world, but that has not been the goal for ANY government organization I've worked for in the past 20 years. The last people gov't employees worry about serving are actual citizens and gov't managers seem to only worry about spending their budget (waste anywhere they can hide it) so that they don't lose any money in next year's budget. I'll take an organization that is profit driven over waste driven any day.
So don't saturate it then. Cap at your router to only allow say, 20 Mbps. Then you don't saturate your connection and they won't bother you. This is what I do (with smaller numbers) after getting harassed by the local ISP.
Locally capped 20Mbps is much better than uncapped 6Mbps.
This is probably not what you meant, since it is more of a government controlled monopoly, but things might get interesting in Portland with wifi.
For years a group of private citizens have been setting up free wifi all over the city. This is what I like to think of as a good example of anarchy in action, or libertarian-socialism.
Problem is, now the city has given a contract to a company to provide free wifi all over the city.
Well, in and ove itself that isn't a problem, but some have speculated that this commercial "free" wifi might overpower and drown out the independent free wifi net.
WiFi's Cloudy Future: Could the City's Plans Kill Free Wireless?
I hate Liberals and Conservatives.
If you are a Liberal or a Conservative, then HAVE A NICE DAY!
Courage.