Clearwire releases first pre-WiMAX PC card for laptops

The latest saviour of wireless broadband is at hand. Clearwire is finally shedding those clunky external modems, and is launching its very first pre-WiMAX data card to bring what it deems "True Broadband" to laptops. The PC card uses Motorola's pre-WiMAX OFDM tech, and doesn't require any extra power sources beyond your laptop's own precious juice. If you're luckily enough to be living in some random part of Clearwire's primarily-podunk US coverage area, you can be getting some 1.5Mbps wireless internets for $59.99 a month, plus a $6.99 a month fee to lease the PC card. You can buy the card straight up for $230, but that seems a bit excessive given the "pre" nature of the thing at the moment.w

[m16 @ Oct 17th 2007 3:46PM]

WANT.

Do not want clearwire.

Want Wimax router.

grunt

[Motorola 3G Victim @ Oct 17th 2007 3:53PM]

This news is so old there is penicillin growing on it!

[Nick Gold @ Oct 17th 2007 4:34PM]

1.5Mbps? I get about a Megabit, little more a lot of the time, using my Sprint EV-DO Rev A card. I thought WiMax was going to be a significant improvement over 3G? What gives?

[Z @ Oct 18th 2007 8:34PM]

That's what I was thinking. 1.5Mbps??? I don't get it. Why is that supposed to be exciting? And for $60/mo. with little coverage? Yip-dee-doo.

Not ready for prime time. Not ready for anytime, IMO. But of course like anything else, they have to start somewhere.

[joegibes @ Oct 17th 2007 4:43PM]

I already have this (pretty much).
It's called Sprint Mobile Broadband -- $60 a month for ~1mbps up and ~500kbps down (where I am).

[Anime2399 @ Oct 17th 2007 4:52PM]

I think the main difference between evdo and wimax is going to be the latency. On evdo I can get 1-1.5 mbps but in games I get terrible lag.

[John Henry @ Oct 17th 2007 5:32PM]

What kind of BS is this? Clearwire has been offering their routers for use for $20 a month (upstate NY) for 4 months, promising all along that as soon as they had their "air card" ready (as they called it) it would be the same price for service. $60 a month? Why would you possibly buy this, when you could get Verizon EVDO for that price and get it in a large enough area to make it useful?

[dimsum05 @ Oct 17th 2007 5:08PM]

I really don't see the big deal about this. HSDPA already does about 1 to 1.5 Mbps with a theoretical 3.6 in some markets. There is also virtually no lag as well...

[CUBSWILLWIN @ Oct 17th 2007 5:02PM]

Darn me and my obselete linksys router technology

[Motorola 3G Victim @ Oct 17th 2007 5:27PM]

I have the big clearwire modem (the original) and when they announced this (a couple of months ago?) they also announced an enhanced data speed for the big modem. I upgraded service, just a phone call to a very pleasant call center human whom spoke excellent english and my modem instantly started pulling in a solid 250KBps. Since then I've been getting bursts up to 478KBps. I'm in downtown Seattle.

It could be the PCMCIA modem is capable of the enhanced service as well at some point.

[Xanik @ Oct 17th 2007 5:33PM]

Hey! Nashville isn't as podunk as people think it is! At any rate, if Comcast continues to anger me, Clearwire will be a, errm, 'clear' winner for me with this :)

[Michael LaFramboise @ Oct 17th 2007 5:35PM]

sigh... still these outdated PC cards - when will we see things like this, but in the ExpressCard/34 form factor

[Shibathedog @ Oct 17th 2007 6:02PM]

whoah is that slow and expensive.

If this is really supposed to replace all other forms of home internet access I won't be signing up for a longggg time.

[TVGenius @ Oct 17th 2007 6:26PM]

Love the technology. Our local ISP has been using WiMax (same stuff as Clearwire) since 1999. Can't beat it, unless it's dusty. During the wind storm we had last night, our signal was getting spotty (and we live only three blocks from the tower).

[jake @ Oct 17th 2007 6:29PM]

.w

[Michael La Framboise @ Oct 17th 2007 7:03PM]

He can't run for a 3rd term - no need to spread the propaganda.

[jake @ Oct 17th 2007 7:19PM]

blame engadget for their subliminal hints at the end of their write-ups. i was simply pointing it out.

[abhorrent @ Oct 17th 2007 7:33PM]

Everyone keeps assuming this is WiMax, which it is NOT. Think of this card a stop gap until the WiMax express cards come out. Expedience (the OFDM solution Clearwire currently uses) is not WiMax. Everyone is making a big stink out of an Expedience air card... For those that have seen this announcement before, that may be because you were in a market where Clearwire was doing their alpha and beta testing. Today is just their "official" release to all markets.

[Primus @ Oct 17th 2007 10:26PM]

abhorrent's right on the money. We got the dog-and-pony show for these cards about a month and a half ago (we're reluctant resellers), and the cards were available the next day. It took some prying out of the sales reps, and they never did come out and admit it, but these are a stopgap until WiMax is ready.

There are also two big caveats: no ExpressCard, no OS X. They were hazy on possible future OS X support, but flat out said that ExpressCard development costs weren't worth it on a technology that's going to be thrown away in a year's time.

[Jared @ Oct 18th 2007 9:54AM]

Clearwire is advertising like CRAZY here in western new york. So I went online and did a quick google search to see people's experiences. I'll save you the trouble, don't bother. I have yet to find a single positive review of their service. They apparently have more scams running than a new york city electronics shop.