Sprint and Intel signing up Baltimore-area XOHM testers

Back in June, we heard that Sprint would be going live with its XOHM WiMAX service in Baltimore, um, this month. As of today, it's pretty clear that the service won't be rolled out fully before October dawns, but at least some progress is being made. Based on a survey sent out to select (read: lucky) Baltimore-area residents, it seems that Intel and Sprint are willing to give away free laptops in order to trial the XOHM service in the city. Unfortunately, the lappies won't even be given out until late October, and the trial itself is set to last 30 days, so frankly, we'll be lucky to see XOHM hit the general populace before Santa takes to the friendly skies. Though, why are we not surprised?

[Thanks, Anonymous]

[Larry @ Sep 24th 2008 9:24AM]

Loaner laptop? It clearly says "yours to keep."

[Tonicboy @ Sep 24th 2008 9:26AM]

For the love of God, why Baltimore?! San Francisco makes much more sense both because it's a much denser city and because... well just because, dammit.

[John @ Sep 24th 2008 10:09AM]

EAST is better than WEST

Why don't you hella get over it.

[tyrone @ Sep 26th 2008 9:38AM]

i'm guessing because their PCS network started in the Washingtio-Baltimore area. kind of a back to the roots thing...i guess

[Mystakill @ Sep 24th 2008 1:31PM]

Maybe this'll make up for the fact that we still don't have FiOS in Baltimore...

[Jon Nelson @ Sep 24th 2008 1:51PM]

@ John

I've been living in the bay area for a little while now, and I've only actually heard one person say "hella" and it made me laugh so hard that I almost choked.

You, sir, despite making fun of my beloved bay, just made my day.

[Bryan @ Sep 24th 2008 4:58PM]

I recently moved to Baltimore and I would say they chose Baltimore because it is a large enough urban center to test it but not so large that it would overwhelm them. Baltimore city has about 650,000 residents and when you add in the 'burbs it adds up to about 2.5 million.

[Valicore @ Sep 24th 2008 5:29PM]

Damn, I say hella all the time, so do all of my friends (early twenties). I think the reason they chose Baltimore is that they don't want to overwhelm their system in the way the SF Bay Area would. There will definitely be more people signing up in the Bay Area than Baltimore because of all the tech companies based here. I think their new network would crash if they just threw it out onto NYC or SF.

[THJ @ Sep 24th 2008 9:41AM]

Next season on the Wire: Lester taps Marlo's Skype account and gets removed from his myspace top friends.

[eggothewaffle @ Sep 24th 2008 11:14AM]

I died laughing.

Oh, and I totally signed up for this :D

[paul @ Sep 24th 2008 9:50AM]

i live in the baltimore area...any ideas how to sign up?

[TimB @ Sep 24th 2008 10:21AM]

I'm not sure if everyone on the waiting list got the invitation, or just a random selection.
I got the invitation and signed up, but I still don't know whether I'll be chosen for the free laptop / trial.

I sure hope so, though :)

Centrino 2 laptop with built in WiMax? It's gotta be a pretty decent lappy! :)

[Tony Rayo @ Sep 24th 2008 10:18AM]

http://www.xohm.com/xohm_signup.html

[telepheedian @ Sep 24th 2008 10:01AM]

If they're going to test places in the middle of nowhere, they might as well try it in Little Rock.

[John @ Sep 24th 2008 10:18AM]

I'm assuming they're using Baltimore because the whole Baltimore-DC Metro area has a strong government presence. If the deployment works, chances are that Sprint and Intel will get lots of business from the government (and, in turn, lots of cash).

[Jeff @ Sep 24th 2008 10:33AM]

Yeah, because right between washington and philly is nowhere. Northeast Megalopolis ring a bell? The poplulation of 2 million in the Baltimore area compared to under a million in Little Rock could have been one of the reasons.

[Tony Rayo @ Sep 24th 2008 10:15AM]

Sprint has a very strong presence in the D.C. Metro Area, so I am not surprised to see it pop up here. I attend Johns Hopkins so I am set when it comes to bandwidth, but I would still like to see how Sprint's XOHM network tests out. I've been using Sprint for years now, they should hook me up =).

[Knives_Out @ Sep 24th 2008 10:22AM]

any news from the chicago area?

[neodorian @ Sep 24th 2008 11:31AM]

I got my email yesterday and I hope to god I get picked to be in this survey. Sprint is already the preferred carrier out here for high speed data so it makes sense to test it here. I could really use a new laptop too because I broke my tablet a few months ago and can't afford a new one.

[jake @ Sep 24th 2008 12:01PM]

The Wire is sweet...Avon Barkesdale is bad azz, and i reckon we'd make beautiful children, beautiful bad azz children...8===>

[Kiamat @ Sep 24th 2008 12:13PM]

They installed a repeater tower on my apartment building. I *better* be getting an invite! -_-

[nauticus25 @ Sep 24th 2008 1:08PM]

There's a meeting of the minds in Fells Point this afternoon. While grabbin a hot dog from the stand at the end of Broadway, I saw a black van with XOHM graphics on it. We walked over to a patch of grass by the Bond Street Wharf to enjoy lunch al fresco, and there was a swarm of guys with an even bigger swarm of laptops hanging out under the trees. There were a few Intel and Sprint employee badges and a bunch of the laptops that had a few different XOHM branded USB antennas connected. Probably 10-12 guys, almost 20 laptops, including a black Eee pc sized device and something that looked like my Sprint Mogul on steroids (almost 2x wide, 1.5x tall, 1.6x thick, slide out keyboard).

[neodorian @ Sep 24th 2008 1:16PM]

Was it the Nokia N810? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N810

I know there is a WiMax version of that. Wish I didn't just get to work. Otherwise I would be down in Fells harassing them to let me join the next phase of testing.

/stuck at JHMI

[nauticus25 @ Sep 24th 2008 1:16PM]

That 'roided Mogul was probably just the Nokia N810. I didn't get a very good look at it.

[Adam @ Sep 24th 2008 1:18PM]

WHEN WILL WE GET COST INFORMATION?

Honestly, it's been a year since they announced the network officially.

[Vic @ Sep 24th 2008 3:11PM]

Not true, the first meeting is in the middle of October, but I think they are in at least two locations. I'm in for Linthicum.

[nauticus25 @ Sep 24th 2008 4:26PM]

I didn't mean that this was their official meeting with the public, it was just another way of saying "a bunch of guys from Intel and Sprint are standing around together with an obscene number of laptops all laid out." Several of them were regularly checking their Blackberries and I overheard one guy chatting on the phone with someone about signals and users. I'm not in their line of work, but the whole thing appeared to me to be a signal test for that part of the city.

The meeting for the beta-testers in Towson is the w/o Oct 20th. I think the "park" these guys were at is where the media event is going to be held on Oct 8th. It's more of a prominade with a patch of grass in the middle, but is the only green space close to Bond Street Wharf.

[Adam @ Sep 24th 2008 4:17PM]

I signed up last night, pretty excited...hope to be picked :-)

[Dakota @ Sep 24th 2008 6:51PM]

I sort of laugh at how bad our wireless is compared to *gulp* Canadians.
I live on the Canadian border, close to Prescott and an hour away from Ottawa, so I have seen some of the commercials for services up there on a couple Canadian channels.

Bell Mobility has WiMAX. In over 170 cities. Sure, the 512 Kbps down is slow and $18/mo CAD, but hey, it works. Or of course their high-end plan for $50/mo for 3 Mbps down.

The US has WiMAX... in only two cities commercially? (Excluding "local" providers, of which I've seen a few)

And hell, we won't see WiMAX in every city out there. Hell, I'm an hour away from the closest AT&T 3G, Verizon EVDO, and Sprint or T-Mobile in their entirety.

Is it really worth it?

[neodorian @ Sep 24th 2008 9:36PM]

How is that good? I pay $15/month for something like 1.4mb down and 800mb up and it works all over the place. If I am in rural areas it is obviously not that fast but the same would go for WiMax. 3G cellular beats those speeds Bell is offering and some of them cost less.

[mario @ Oct 2nd 2008 8:58AM]

Pickedup my WiMax card yesterday only a few retail outlets have it and they are all small computer stores NO big box retailers yet. Install took about 15 mins, still testing sppe and comapring to my Verizon cellbroadband card. Place called Computer Harbor 1123 Light St is where i got it. Ill post some video results of tests etc on da blog marioarmstrong.com/blog or just follow along on twitter @marioarmstrong - any Baltimore heads wanna do a WiMax meetup??