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Comcast Bringing Metropolitan WiMAX To Subscribers
RickRussellTX writes "Comcast plans to offer 4 megabits/sec WiMAX services to customers in Portland, Oregon starting tomorrow. Branded as 'Comcast High-Speed 2go' and '4G,' the service will require a $44.99 per month subscription in addition to existing Comcast home service. For $69.99 they will offer a dual-mode card with access to both Comcast WiMAX and Sprint's national 3G wireless network. Future rollouts are planned for Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Say what you will about Comcast (and I know many Slashdot readers have plenty to say about Comcast), this is a daring attempt to bypass entrenched cell phone companies with a direct-to-consumer wireless service."
I mean, what can you say that's bad about Comcast? Their service is Comcastic!
"Bypass entrenched cell phone companies" LOL
This is the Clearwire network ( A spinoff of Sprint) which Comcast and several other cable providers are joint partners with Sprint on.
As I recall, a 4G system is defined by, among other things, 10ms latency, 100Mb/s nominal throughput and an all-IP network. Mobile WiMAX is all-IP, but 4Mb/s is a long way away from 100Mb/s. HSPA, which is 3.5G or 3.75G depending on the implementation goes from 7.2Mb/s to 42Mb/s.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
When I read this and see the location I just have to think that they are trying to do something as an answer to clear. Portland, OR, has had WiMAX service in the form of Clear now for a few months, without the need to tie it to a home account.
Looking good, except for the outrage that is their DNS ``service'', of course. Me not being in Portland is completely moot because of that.
Cheaper, better service, no threats of filters, uploading caps, and they're the only major US telecom to say no to Bush wiretaps.
Yea they need more power... They are just evil.
Helpful hint to my fellow Comcast victims. If you crab on twitter you will get better service than over the phone.
Complain long and loud on twitter and use the #Comcast hash tag and you will be surprised how helpful they will be.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This kind of makes sense. For Sprint, it's probably a great way to sell nationwide data services plans through bundling which are usually highly profitable. For Comcast, it's a competitive advantage (wireless metro internet service) that's hard for the other traditional more "hard-wired" ISPs to match. It will be interesting to see how they market it on TV, and what types of non-techie people buy it and why
Most likely this service isn't bypassing the wireless carriers. Comcast (along with TimeWarner and others) are partial owners of a company called Clearwire which Sprint owns roughly half of. Clearwire has been rolling out WiMAX as part of Sprint's 4G strategy.
So, while it might be being sold under the Comcast name, you're essentially buying service from Clear (http://www.clear.com/) run by Clearwire (http://clearwire.com) which is (half) owned by Sprint.
They'll cap and meter bandwidth, shape traffic, block ports, hamstring the customers with a draconian TOS, etc, etc, rendering this WiMAX service totally 100% craptastic.
Oh, and customer support will be stellar, as usual.
You have to have Comcast's regular service, and then subscribe to WiMax.
Here in Baltimore, one of the first cities to get WiMAX, you can get WiMAX only service at a reasonable price, and for just a little more, you can get home and mobile service.
Leave it to Comcast to try and bilk the consumer for every penny they can.
So those who can already get DSL and Cable service now get WiMAX too..... GREAT!!
How about a wireless service that actually helps the people who can't get the wires!?
Where does one go when the "Land of the Free" and the "Home of the Brave" has become the "Land of the Silenced Opposition and Taxed to Death" and the "Home of the Fearful People Who Resemble Caged Animals More Than Humans?"
I've been using it for the better part of the past two weeks. And I'm pretty satisfied with the service. Although I live in Saudi Arabia, which is...a bit far from Oregon.
I pay about $190 for a six-month subscription at 2 megabit. ~$30 a month. 2 megabit is the maximum speed they offer, but it's not bad at all- only slightly more expensive than ADSL (which goes all the way up to 20mbit, but costs an arm and a leg at that tier), and I get a ~150ms ping on US servers. More than adaquate for gaming.
Thing is, the service has been trumpeted out for eons now. Well, since 2004 or so at least. I had long given up on practical residential WiMAX as vaporware, until earlier this year when the service was rolled out in earnest.
Where does one go when the "Land of the Free" and the "Home of the Brave" has become the "Land of the Silenced Opposition and Taxed to Death" and the "Home of the Fearful People Who Resemble Caged Animals More Than Humans?"
Actually, I think Britain has that first one covered. I'll vote for the latter tho.
And I'll only pay $55, rather than the absurd markup you're asking...
What are the throughput limits for the service?
There's always a catch with comcast.
They're using their grammar skills there.
to see what you will actually be getting from their offered service, divide everything they are promising for your service by 4* (this includes the unlimited bandwidth).
* - 4 maybe a little too low.
So they are unaware of the economic crisis? They think $$$ grows on trees? Are they INSANE???? Oh, they're Comcast, duh.
Ditch the requirement to be a wired comcast subscriber. Seriously, there are probably tons of people who arent serviced by comcast (or any cable company) that would love the opportunity to pay $45/mo for high speed wireless. But they are too shortsighted to recognize the potential, and instead want to use this as leverage to sell their cable.
Wifi is the first step. The next steps are cloud computing and biometric monitoring, through more camz and microphones.
I've used XOHM, the Spring WiMax service in Baltimore. I tested it at 3 mbps down, 1.5 up, and you can buy in daily blocks if you don't use it every day (like, 10 a day I think). I stream my Netflix with it, and it's pretty fast, haven't tried any gaming with it though. The monthly service is way cheaper than what Comcast is offering. Sucks to be in Portland.
I bring nothing to the table.
Apparently proofreading has gone out of style with the Slashdot editors, since they let the summary get the pricing and details all wrong. The prices Comcast gives in TFA are for WiMAX + Comcast HSI, not just the WiMAX service. Furthermore they're the introductory prices, not the final prices. I'm just going to rip off the DSL Reports piece on this, since they get it right.
Once you factor out the first-year incentives, what Comcast is doing is reselling WiMAX for $30 a month on top of your current bill, and they are reselling WiMAX + Sprint's 3G service for $50 a month on top of your current bill.
The 3G service comes with the standard 5GB cap (making it slightly cheaper than regular plans since pro-rated it's $20, while stand-alone plans usually start at $30), while the WiMAX service is undefined. Clear has a $30 tier, but it's only 200MB. Presumably Comcast is getting a better deal here and reselling the $40 package that comes with a 2GB plan, but someone is going to have to find out the finer details on that since Comcast isn't spilling the beans on the matter.
Too expensive. Not worth it. Say no to Comcast.
So Comcast is just reselling Clear WiMax service, at the same price as Clear (okay, fine, $0.01 a month cheaper,) then tacking on the requirement that you have Comcast home internet already.
Uh, okay...
If they offered some kind of discount, it might be worth getting; but I suppose some people will do it just because of the whole 'single bill' thing.
I wanted to switch to Clear with a home/mobile bundle a few months ago; but my house has zero signal. (Even though I'm well within the service area.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I heard an ad for this on the radio today. The ad was for a promotional price of 49.99 for their mobile "4G" internet along with home internet for x # of months. I think 12 months. That said I was wondering if they are renting part of Clear's network and rebranding it, especially since the ad was for a bundle rather than standalone service. I was part of the beta for Clear near the end of this year and continued to use it until they shut down the network to go live in about early February. Service was continually improving throughout the time I used it although it still had a few dead spots in places where I would like to use it. 3 or 4 were left on my hour long commute on the MAX (our light rail system in Portland), which was much better than at the start of the beta. I have 6 months free for being part of the beta with Clear coming up here when I decide to redeem it and am looking forward to using the system again and am hoping they have continued to improve