Sprint and Motorola take a slow boat down Chicago's Xohm fast lane
by Thomas Ricker 
posted Sep 26th 2007 at 9:49AM
Live video feed, even in full-screen mode, was very good without suffering from "dropped frames or hiccups of any kind" while websites "loaded quickly and seemed very snappy" without any lag whatsoever. The laptops used for the demonstration "all had massive PCMCIA cards" with 2x antenna while the Motorola handsets were all existing models stuffed with WiMax guts. Of course, this was a controlled demonstration across four towers covering just 0.8 miles of the Chicago River. As such, we'd best wait for the pre-commercial trials starting later in the year to get a real feel for the service performance. Commercial launch is planned for April 2008 with pricing expected to match home DSL and cable services without any smarmy, fixed-length cellular-style contract required. Just buy your own hardware and subscribe for as long as you like. Somebody give us a pinch, we must be dreaming.
Read -- Ars Technica hands-on
Read -- Motorola press release
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DingDong @ Sep 26th 2007 10:13AM
Second City FTW! Now get that goodness to NYC, pronto.
tom_servo @ Sep 26th 2007 10:20AM
This is cool...but we don't even have 3G yet in my town. By the time Wimax comes here, they'll be beaming wireless directly into your brain in the major markets.
Chino B @ Sep 26th 2007 10:23AM
Chi-town oh yeah.
triple x @ Sep 26th 2007 10:29AM
this is the way it should have been from the beginning!!!
bring your own hardware and join without contracts. i cant wait for xohm to hit philly
pAT @ Sep 26th 2007 10:28AM
I wonder if that'll reach us folk out in the styx. T'ain't like we got no mountains or nuthin' round these here parts. Nice 'n' flat!
Mikey @ Sep 26th 2007 10:45AM
What part of the Chicago area do you consider the "styx"? I've seen proposed ranges of around 30 miles. From the loop, that should be enough to reach out/atleast close to: Buffalo Grove, Shaumburg, Naperville, Homewood, and Gary,IN.
ketel1 @ Sep 26th 2007 10:51AM
lol des plaines?
bob @ Sep 26th 2007 12:08PM
As long as Winnetka isn't forgotten.
wirelessanywhereanytime @ Sep 26th 2007 2:05PM
Stay tuned for the 700MHz auction in January. 700MHz carries especially well over longer distances, perfect for broadband out in the countryside. Let's hope a WiMAX provider buys the spectrum. Let's hope further that some additional sub 1GHz spectrum frees up for open wireless broadband.
pAT @ Sep 27th 2007 3:01AM
How about Batavia?
Kerry Saylor @ Sep 26th 2007 10:41AM
No offense to the big city folks, but, this technology has 'suburban areas' written all over it! Most of those folks out in the country that can't get normal DSL or cable broadband should be the first to experience what the internet is all about! My folks rely on WildBlue Satellite for their broadband service. While it is an alternative, it doesn't even come close to the speeds that cable or DSL can provide. WiMAX will give them alternatives and will help drive down costs of satellite broadband providers. I think they are spending about $70 for access equivalent to about 3x faster than dialup.
Kevo @ Sep 26th 2007 10:41AM
That's great! I'm happy to see it shown first in Chi-town! I hope the rollout starts here too.
Stop complaining NY, Verizon hooked you up with FiOS. I'm still waiting on that one.
DingDong @ Sep 26th 2007 10:46AM
You meant to say, "Verizon hooked up 12 blocks of the Upper West Side with FiOS". FiOS is a FiHOAX.
Jon @ Sep 26th 2007 10:57AM
FIOS is only available to about 12 homes right now. I called Verizon and they expect a rollout to an additional 4 homes by the end of the year.
Seriously though..what the hell takes the big companies so long? I know cabling is a major project and investment, but it seems like there are plenty of wanting customers to cover that. I'd jump all over an alternative to Time Warner in a second.
(upstate NY)
Brad @ Sep 26th 2007 2:52PM
The problem is that willing customers or no, you aren't going to make up the cost of a FiOS rollout through internet subscriber fees. Verizon needs you to buy HD Television, Internet, and Telephone from them, and then still they'd need the government to cover part of the cost. FiOS isn't profitable yet (and won't be for some time) so the rollouts are just big enough to test hardware and get federal funding for other projects.
Now if the fed. gov't decides that broadband is a universal service the way they did with telephone, you'll see FiOS nearly everywhere, because laying NEW twisted pair copper is just not worth it.
Jason @ Sep 26th 2007 11:40AM
Really? You mean that Sprint's 4G Technology with zero users is far superior to Verizon's 3G Technology with tons of subscribers? FTW!
Kudos to Sprint for being first to market with this technology, but c'mon Engadget, if you are going to compare fruit, let's use apples and apples!
insertAlias @ Sep 26th 2007 12:49PM
I'm pretty sure that Ars Technica made the comparison, not Engadget. Engadget is reporting what they said, not making a conclusion of their own.
And by the way, what else would you compare a new technology to except an existing one it is supposed to be better than?
Matt @ Sep 26th 2007 3:55PM
With this crowd, I'm sure you'd just get a lot of people complaining that they left out the oranges and focused only on the apples.
Glynnjamin @ Sep 26th 2007 11:56AM
Slow boat from Chicago?
Is that like the Slow Train from Philly?
MichaelLC @ Sep 26th 2007 12:33PM
Chitown in da house!
Very clever of Moto and Sprint to do it on a boat. Great way to show an ideal, but still "real world" demo.
Zack @ Sep 30th 2007 3:34PM
Twice the speed of Verizon's EVDO network, they say? Sounds a lot like just what I'd expect from EVDO Rev. B or HSUPA, both of which are going to be rolling out late this year/throughout next year in the US. And that network infastructure is already in place.
Sprint's WiMAX spectrum is 2.5GHz, which isn't very good at penetrating buildings or trees, and it doesn't seem to be appreciably faster than what is already available in Europe or what will be available in the near future, so I'm curious... what's the big deal? It sounds like Sprint is banking on something they don't need and consumers don't want.
John Stracke @ Sep 27th 2007 9:17AM
So, wait a minute. They had 4 towers to cover 0.8 miles of river? That means the towers were about 0.2 miles apart, so their radius was about 500 feet. WiMax is supposed to support cells with a radius of 4-5 miles. 500 feet really isn't very impressive; you could almost reach that with 802.11n.
tulga @ Sep 27th 2007 11:57PM
Wow, is that true John? because recently EV-DO released in my country!
Seemed quite stupid and expensive system for me, Also Chicago doesn't have so high buildings right?