WiMAX tested in Reno, doesn't work in cars

Sprint may have just launched the XOHM WiMAX network in Baltimore, but would-be merger partner Clearwire has been running its version of the mobile broadband service in Reno for a while, and InfoWorld went down to test it out and give us a taste of what to expect. Performance was good while not in motion, with downloads speeds around 1.5 to 2.0 Mbps and uploads hitting 275 to 325Kbps, but actually getting mobile broadband seems to be out of the question -- the system simply couldn't connect to a laptop moving in a car or on a train. That seems like a dealbreaker to us, but we'll give it a pass for now since it's so early in the game -- we'll see if Sprint can do better.

[DssTrainer @ Sep 30th 2008 10:31AM]

And thats why EVDO ftw!

[Basic @ Sep 30th 2008 11:58AM]

Ditto EVDO and UMTS networks work fine for me

[kevinm @ Sep 30th 2008 12:05PM]

Okay, this is just irresponsible on the part of Infoworld and Engadget. The article states that it's NOT WiMax (yet uses that term a lot), and Engadget goes and throws a headline declaring Wimax doesn't work.

It's not clear what the capabilities of the pre-Wimax system are... it might be pre-802.11d, which was never meant to be mobile at all. Looking at clearwire's page, they never advertise it works while moving.

802.11e, which *is* designed to be mobile, has been demonstrated at 70mph+ a number of times.

[MadMike @ Sep 30th 2008 1:17PM]

You know people don't actually RTFA, that would take too much time and they wouldn't get first comment.

[DssTrainer @ Sep 30th 2008 1:27PM]

First comment? You mean engadget?

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Sep 30th 2008 9:48PM]

I am willing to bet, if he used an external antenna mounted on the car's roof he would get better throughput
(Same with GPS, EVDO and XM Radio). But because it's sending and receiving wireless data in a metal car that is slightly shielded from outside RF, his bandwidth will decrease as high frequency 2.4-2.5ghz RF typically has low penetration power and does not pass well through objects or walls.

Next time he'd better retest it again on a motorcycle or with a second passenger on a Bombardier Can-Am.

[Spexfox @ Sep 30th 2008 10:33AM]

It doesn't work because Clearwire is a horrific provider. Even worse then Comcast. Yea, I know what I said....

[Rainier @ Sep 30th 2008 10:34AM]

"clearw're"

What happened to the "i"?

[Technex @ Sep 30th 2008 11:12AM]

Rebel against current traditions.

[A non eMous @ Sep 30th 2008 11:28AM]

my guess is that the body of the "i" is supposed to represent a wire. With being a wireless service, there is no wire (i.e. "clear" wire) and so the body of the "i" is absent...

[MadMike @ Sep 30th 2008 10:37AM]

So how is this faster than current 3G? 1.5 - 2.0Mbps is around what EVDO REV A and UTMS can hit. Lets see if LTE does any better.

[Juan @ Sep 30th 2008 10:39AM]

The WiMax 802.16 original specification isn't designed for high speed movement. I thought that was left to a revision of 802.16 or even the 802.20 specification.

[waffles @ Sep 30th 2008 11:32AM]

i believe clearwire is running a pre-certified version. the technology works, as it has been demonstrated at speed in chicago. now whether that was while running reno's version, or baltimore's is up in the air. would like to see infoworld head to baltimore and put it through the same paces.

biggest deal breaker for me is latency, not bandwidth. give me the option for preferred routing verizon... i will pay you handily for it....

[Mike Lowe @ Sep 30th 2008 11:00AM]

The author equates Clearwire's service with WiMax based on a commonly used radio bandwidth sharing method. If wireless service were fruit the author would be commenting on the taste of Washington apples based on the taste of Florida navel oranges.

[wickedpheonix @ Sep 30th 2008 11:15AM]

EPIC FAIL. Do your job Clearwire, the main challenge with mobile communications is with seamlessly transferring between towers - not to mention the fact that the commute is where the vast majority of usage is going to be (i.e. people who use public transport, not while they're driving their cars).

[m @ Sep 30th 2008 11:55AM]

except that i've already seen people driving with computers on their laps, for example on the 91 in orange county--at over 70 mph. don't underestimate human stupidity.

[Asten @ Sep 30th 2008 11:35AM]

Okay, this is just irresponsible on the part of Infoworld and Engadget. The article states that it's NOT WiMax (yet uses that term a lot), and Engadget goes and throws a headline declaring Wimax doesn't work.

It's not clear what the capabilities of the pre-Wimax system are... it might be pre-802.11d, which was never meant to be mobile at all. Looking at clearwire's page, they never advertise it works while moving.

802.11e, which *is* designed to be mobile, has been demonstrated at 70mph+ a number of times.

[awake @ Sep 30th 2008 11:58AM]

I concur, you have to understand anything Sprint related is going to be slammed by engadget. Wimax has been tested in moving vehicles at speeds of at least 70MPH with success.

[Leindurstit @ Sep 30th 2008 1:20PM]

Well, don't forget:

"You don't have to be a professional writer, but you do have to be able to write about technology with wit, style, and intelligence — or at least be able to fake it."

[nerdtalker @ Sep 30th 2008 3:05PM]

Engagdet has really gotten to the point that just about anything is slammable, whether or not it rightly deserves it or not. That means anything. CDMA was their latest whipping boy (and honestly, at least read the wikipedia page before slamming it, you made me do something between a cringe and a dry-heave with your FUD), followed by, you guessed it, all the CDMA carriers (which by the way are enjoying good speeds and fewer dropped calls than AT&T).

The headline here is beyond misleading. WiMAX _will_ work in cars, absolutely so. The draft specification (which is what the reviewer tested) definitely won't.

Honestly, I also found the story overly qualitative. I don't care about how his laptop had issues connecting; it's likely that he was experiencing some sort of driver/software configuration problem, and nothing related to WiMAX itself. Moreso, there are about 4 actual speedtest stats that he reported, all of which are very vague, with no actual quantitative measure of signal strength. I know infoworld is piss poor, but honestly, not even doing some sort of careful, serious testing? Inexcusable.

More and more, I'm beginning to think WiMAX's weakest link is the backhauls themselves. It doesn't matter if the network itself is capable of 4+ megabit speeds if the provider has them connected to crappy 1.5 megabit backhauls, and, moreover, crappy reviewers will pass that subpar performance conclusion off as fact, despite the fact that the backhaul, and not WiMAX, is to blame.

[SJoeMoe @ Sep 30th 2008 11:40AM]

I have tested our Wimax in Canada (Bell Sympatico), and have connected and surfed at speed in my car without issues.

[Garrett @ Sep 30th 2008 12:05PM]

Hey, anyone also know that our sparkling new ATSC digital TV standard also doesn't work in motion unless there is some fancy doppler compensating antenna array? The other side of pond has DVB-T that seems to fair MUCH better. Strike against Wimax.... lets see about LTE.

[Benson @ Sep 30th 2008 12:09PM]

WiMAX tested in Reno, just to watch it die.

[Dead_Rebel @ Sep 30th 2008 12:56PM]

I high rank you, sir.
/me wonders how many people will get it.

[kal326 @ Sep 30th 2008 1:50PM]

@Dark_Rebel
I bet a few....

[Nacho PATA @ Sep 30th 2008 2:45PM]

Reno didn't get WiMax*, WiMax got Reno'd.

* - or whatever this really is

[Costas @ Oct 1st 2008 8:36AM]

Hey in Athens Greece the local Telecom Giant OTE is already testing WiMax in a series of customers that joined and also in a monastery area called Athos in the North of Greece. No mention for mobile WiMax though.

[Kyle @ Sep 30th 2008 1:14PM]

This is Clearwire's Expedience network, it is not WiMax. Clearwire currently has only one WiMax market, Portland, OR.

[Demodave @ Sep 30th 2008 1:18PM]

When I hear that modem connectin',
I hang my head and cry.

[Demodave @ Sep 30th 2008 1:18PM]

When I hear that modem connectin',
I hang my head and cry.

[Jimmy Monet @ Sep 30th 2008 1:25PM]

You knows what's funny? I live in Reno and that clearwire broadband is alright certainly not comparable to wired broadband in practice. But even better is that we have buses running through downtown with wifi connections to get online, I haven't tried them yet though.

[Jerry @ Oct 1st 2008 8:18PM]

This is NOT Wimax. This is the the Expedience product that they have been using for over four years now in many other markets around the world. They have one Wimax network and it is not Reno. Engadget did not do a very good job of reporting this. I have personally witnessed mobile handoffs with Wimax at 70-80+ mph. The Expedience network relies on scanning to a new tower once the connection is dropped. Mobile Wimax will pass the IP packets on and will keep the data session up and running. Looks to me like Engadget has it out for Clearwire or Wimax.

[MikeH @ Sep 30th 2008 3:53PM]

Ummmyeah..

Ever heard of "Fixed" vs "Mobile" WiMax?

Clearwire has been using the "Fixed" variant, which has NO support for handovers at speed, and a totally different radio interfaces.

The original Fixed-wimax uses OFDM256 and Time Division for a multiple access scheme. This works fine if you are sitting still. There needs to be some sort of ranging, like GSM uses, to offset your timeslices if you are moving one way or the other. AFAIK this revision of OFDM does not have any sort of ranging adjustments.

The new Mobile WiMax, 802.16e uses OFDMA, which actually allocates each user a subset of the OFDM carriers to use for transmitting, versus having things time divided. Not to mention it now provides for handovers.

This is a BAD test when the method you were testing, is not even theoretically supported by radio modulation scheme.

[mackmother @ Sep 30th 2008 5:31PM]

True 802.16e delivers the following in tests in Cayman Islands...
Sustainable 4Mbps DL and 2Mbps UL
Test done in a car doing 70km/h, could not drive faster ;) while simultaneously conducting real-time MP3 radio streaming, movie download from piratebay, "You Tubing" ultimate fighting and “Skyping” to Italy switching seamless between sectors maintaining QoS…"no dropped packets"
Coverage, in a car up to 4Km in NLOS and 6Km in LOS
Network equpment Alvarion BreezeMAX 2.3GHz
Equipment Dell Laptop and PCMCIA Card

[snang @ Sep 30th 2008 6:14PM]

Engadget is very biased when it comes to their writing. I've come
to ignore it.

Most of the time it's either very negative...in general, regardless of
what it is, or it's very, very biased.

I now rely on Engadget for announcements of new technology, not
reviews of existing tech.

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 30th 2008 8:43PM]

I've dealt with ClearWire a "WiMax-like" service before and I can't say I enjoyed the service or the company's customer service, but I think this is irresponsible on the part of Engadget without more information about the system... Was it even SUPPOSED to be MOBILE WiMax, because there are both fixed and mobile versions of WiMax. And secondly, was this system even using real Wimax-standard based equipment, or some type of uncertified/beta pre-wimax hardware?

[Dorville @ Oct 1st 2008 11:28AM]

Is because, you are using Alcatel-Lucent Bs ;)

[EEnginer @ Sep 30th 2008 11:34PM]

They tested Clearwire's OFDM, which is similar to 'WiMax'

Did I mention there are 2 version of WiMax? Oh you didn't know that?

Fixed WiMax is 802.16d

[Peter D @ Oct 1st 2008 2:37AM]

Well I have one of those PRE-wimax (NOT WIMAX) cards and they work great in seattle. and if you are driving in seattle, the coverage overlaps well enough so that you can still get decent speeds, but once you start really moving, or get to areas with less coverage then all bets are off, the speeds drop off, or your system doesn't have time to get a new IP from the new access node before you leave it again.

So yes and no, the article is both true and false.

and btw, clearwire's customer support blows... and avoid their contracts at all costs... you get STUCK in them, in order to get the pci-express version of the card I had to talk on the phone for an hour, go to a kiosk and wait over an hour, and then talk to MORE people on the phone.... it wasn't easy.. but its a pretty nice thing to ditch the giant modem that I had used.

[Cao @ Nov 10th 2008 4:20PM]

I thought Xohm is the mobile Wimax version. I know fixed Wimax does not work at speeds over 30mph. If Xohm have overcome the speed barrier this is going to kill a bunch of cell & broadband cos. People are already killing their landline service for cell only service and with the coming depression, people will have to cut costs, and with the economies with wimax cell service there will be a bunch of business driven Clearwire/Xohm's way. This is truly one of those disruptive services. Google & Apple must be salivating waiting for this service to rollout. They both have operating systems that a host of 3rd party apps available. The possibilities with a stable mobile broadband system are staggering. Is VoIP possible with WiMax?