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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
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
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 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!
Sprint didn't "roll out" anything. They announced their intent to spend money to do so.
Four things:
One: WiMAX is an open protocol that'll work over a variety of spectra. It's possible to do it over unlisenced bands, UHF (700mhz), MMDS (2.5ghz), and just about anything else you can't shake a stick at. (I assume you can't, anyway. Can diviners locate radio towers?) But one way or another, it's already on the market, and it already works its way around a WiFi wap well enough.
Two: WiFi (54 meg per sec with 802.11g, considerably more with 802.11n) will continue to be faster, easier/cheaper to implement, and far more common for small networks. That and they've got momentum behind 'em. Dig the lifespan of the ethernet port and the amount of money already spent by every coffee shop, hotel, and law firm in the country on WAPs.
Three: There very likely won't be any hacking necessary to change a modem that they sell you to use unlicensed spectrum. Assuming it's possible at all. They'll do it one of two ways: A - They'll put the modem inside the house, run RF cable up to an antenna that down converts the 2.5ghz signal into something used by conventional cable systems and use a regular DOCSIS compliant cablemodem. B - They'll embed everything in the antenna and you'll be screwed/unable to change the broadcast frequency. My money's on B.
Four: The WiMAX modems may become considerably cheaper, but that doesn't matter much. No harder to lock a rogue connection to a WISP's network than it is to knock 'em off a cable providers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.