Well, what do we have here? One of our readers sent us a screenshot from Sprint's Sales Portal that included the above roadmap for its
WiMAX rollout this year. A number of the yet-to-be-launched cities we've already heard about --
Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Charlotte -- but to the best of our knowledge, the rest of them are brand new entries. Additionally, Baltimore residents can look forward to some sort of coverage update in the fourth quarter. We'd be lying if we said we weren't jealous that Salem (population 3,000) and Milledgeville (population 19,000) are getting the wireless network before most of us on staff, but the service has to start somewhere, right? No indication here of 2010 plans, but
last we heard that included Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Update: As tipster Carlos points out, Clearwire's website already has some
coverage maps for some of the cities listed in the third quarter, as well as some markets not listed here.
posted Aug 1st 2009 5:35PM
No love for Los Angeles? Or does it already have it.. I don't live there, I live close, lol
+1 for Los Angeles :)
+1.
You would think
I mean NC? wtc :(
DC Please!
say waaaaaaaaaa!?
ok well ill defend milledgeville... they have georgia southern university which is a good idea.
college kids have laptops, and its a small area... so small investment big payoff
Ooh, Dallas. Can't wait.
its bosie idaho not bosie iowa. we are the hackeye state not potato state.
I'm British and even I noticed that mistake xD
It's not bosie iowa OR bosie idaho, numnuts.
Boise, Idaho.
I was just about to say this.
and we are also the Hawkeye state....
Potatoes, FTW.
I live in Portland and have had Clear WiMax for a while now. Is this different? Is it going to be supported by any phones that we know of?
I live in portland too and have just moved to sprint. I don't think they will have any phone hardware that can use it at first and they will only have a 3G/4G laptop modem.
There is a 3g/4g aircard on the market.
not on sprint though
You can always get an Intel Pro Wireless 5150 or 5350 A/B/G/N/WiMAX internal mPCIe card for your laptop on Ebay.
Sprint's service is waaaay different.
Well, not actually different.
Well okay, here's the diff: Sprint's service combines their 3G with Clear's 4G on the same card, so you can travel around to states without 4G, and still have connectivity with your laptop, running at 3G. And, you get to pay more, for it, as a result.
http://is.gd/1Yt0r the U300 modem. I dont know anything about it..Except that its 3g/4g capable, and has been out for several months.
Oh thats right only roll out in the big cites, screw rural America! Thats ok I get 20 mps with comcast anyway.
They've got to establish an install base where the can get enough revenue to justify.
Or, you could reference my post below:
Salem, NC??? Google that and tell me it makes sense.
Why no Phoenix :(
west texas is like the smallest town around here, the best thing that they have is the Czech stop bakery,
Not like I plan on switching to sprint or anything but I laughed when I saw west Texas but no Houston, 4th largest city in the nation gets no love from Sprint?! Would really consider if we could get a pre with wimax going.
I am saddened that Houston gets no love until next year. I wonder what the pricing is for WiMAX.
Um... Salem, NC? Really?
I have a feeling they are referring to Winston Salem as thats a pretty large city in NC, I mean if they are pulling in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro it would only make since for it to be Winston Salem as its on the cusp of those areas
WTF. they never bring any out in the good areas.
come on, what about small town north east,
burrillville can whip millidgeville any old day.
well if it's a rural place it makes sense since they have a few options of isp
why is sprint even doing wimax when the rest of the world is doing lte? they are completing ostracizing themselves from the rest of the telco industry.
We've had WiMax here Hailey, Idaho for around two years if I remember correctly. They call it BridgeMaxx. For the most part it's reliable. The units sometimes disconnect from the towers without any reason. I hate how it caps at 2 megabits/sec
download, with 768kilobits upload. I suppose it has the capabilty to be faster. They do have one faster option that caps at 3mb down and 1mb upload but it needs at external antenna mounted on the side of your building.
AT&T needs to get with this...
There is no Boise, IA ....
That would suck if there was... I've been waiting in Boise IDAHO forever!!!
...And it's available aready! Stores have been transistioned from Clearwire (old service) to Clear (WiMAX services)! My question, however, is how good it truly is... guess I'm headed to the Clear store tomorrow!
My guess would be that they're doing that because those areas don't have High-Speed internet coverage yet, I have a friend down in NC that always complains about only being able to get Dial-up access. Then, enter Sprint, set up a couple towers here and there and bam! 4G high-speed internet for relatively large areas. Then, since there isn't any land-based competition to compete against, they have a very good chance of getting users to pay for the service. Versus, say, DC, where they would have to compete with Verizon (DSL and FiOS), Comcast (cable), and probably a handful of other companies I don't know about ^_^
Just my 2 cents.
Tripp
i'm hoping that by salem they mean winston-salem. that's where i live!
I scond the dc, baltimore is out of my range
I'm guessing that's Winston-Salem, NC. About 500,000 more people than Salem, NC. Just a guess.
Boise, IA before Orlando, FL ? What is this?
Boise,IA before Orlando,FL before Miami,FL what is this?²
All of that before New York City ?
There is no such thing as Boise IA, but Boise, ID already has it.
And the reason for the 250,000-people-filled Boise-area (Boise, Middleton, Nampa, Meridian, Kuna, etc.) getting WiMAX (called "Clear" in Boise) so soon is best described by "cocoviper" below, but I'll just describe it for you in my words.
Boise is pretty ideal for WiMAX rollout becuase it would be a lot easier to cover. It is relatively flat (until you get out ot the foothills), thus making line of sight issues less problematic. Also, it's a smaller area, so that means less cell towers to convert, less demand to handle, and it also makes it a pretty good test area. This is probably why Boise was one of the to receive Clearwire, as well.
And as much as I hated clearwire for their slow speeds, I think I might need to give this a whirl.
@MastrCake: Yes, there is a Boise, Iowa. They recently celebrated the towns 100th Anniversary.
They mispelled Colorado as a bunch of other states.
??? You mean, they mistook Boise, ID for Boise, IA?
We can't haz Denver?
"West Texas, Texas"
Does that mean the "West Texas" region of Texas? A quick Google search doesn't really reveal a city called that, just a little subspot in Dallas. Because there are quite a few cities in west Texas that already have Clearwire Wimax (Lubbock, Midland, Abilene, etc), so I don't know what that really means in terms of rebranding or what.
WTF. Get it on with Chicago already!!!!!!!!!!!!
Midland Texas is getting wimax...got an email from clearwire
Bellingham! HELL YEAH!
Excellence on the Bham. I scanned the list, expecting to see Seattle...but Bellingham...wow.
I guess we already have a pretty established Clearwire service area.
NY and Boston AFTER these? this is a joke, right....
Large urban markets take a lot more time to buildout than smaller rural markets due to line of sight problems, zoning requirements, and getting backhaul to support tens of thousands or even millions of users vs a few thousand.
WOOT Baltimore!
Where the heck is Milledgeville?
What happened to Seattle, which they promised for 2009??
sprints response: Oh that...ha you believed that ? It was a joke, screw Seattle.
yay for Raleigh being on the 2009 list.
I wonder if Sprint understands how much bad will exists with the Clearwire name...
2 weeks ago some clearwire sales guy in the mall kiosk was trying to sell me on it, telling me to buy it now, and lock in the price, because they are making it 4G soon, and the price will go out.
(In Raleigh)
Clearwire is pretty good.. They give you a product on hand and the price is locked.. Wait for other competitors it will change how they market and sell this product..
Are these companies stupid? WiMAX works best in FLAT areas and gives the best signal strengths! Phoenix Arizona would be phenomenal for this product..
Bring on Lincoln, NE / Omaha, NE / Kansas City, MO / Denver, CO
Soooo, they hit west texas, DFW, San Antonio and Austin but not Houston? WTF?
Georgia Southern is in Statesboro, GA, not Milledgeville.
Georgia College and Georgia Military are in Milledgeville.
The service is already live in Chicago and has been for atleast the 6 months I have been using it. I just set a mailbox with a Baltimore UPS store which forwards my mail to Chicago. I used that address to register for the service.
I have used the service in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Dallas as well. The gear exist in pockets.
I feel like they are trying to get a good sample of different cities, to see the percentage of people in smaller towns who would actually be interested in 4g versus the big city where people buy phones for new technologies. Maybe the smaller cities are just testers for future sprint networks...
Why not just put a few towers in nyc up and call it a day?
These A holes are nuts are they not?
You would think the Kansas City Metro area would be on there, or at least Overland Park, you know, because that is where Sprints world headquarters is. Way to alienate your neighbors Sprint. Lol
Salem is probably supposed to be Winston-Salem which has a Pop. of about 200,000 and is a neighbor of Greensboro Pop. 240,000 with a combined metro area of around 1 million including High Point and surrounding communities. The Triad area of NC was one of Clearwire's original locations when the company launched with pre-Wimax and expanded thru out metro North Carolina. So, it would make sense for Clearwire to upgrade the pre-Wimax network to Wimax now instead of later.
Raleigh and Charlotte? That's me, hooray!
I call BS..or at least laziness on Sprints behalf...after all Boise, IA does not exist, however Boise, ID does...Being from Iowa it saddens me that we don't get any Des Moines love, but on top of that to get us mixed up with Idaho? For shame! We grow the corn and have the swine population, they have the potatoes...lets get it right people, the more you know! Knowledge is power!
I appears that the WiMax rollout maybe piggybacking on existing Airband Communication, Inc's installations. If that is truly the case then perhaps 2010 cities might include Phoenix, Houston, Miami, Ft Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego.
Nothing really new here -- if this is the real Sprint delivery list it's probably a dated one since they are already live in Vegas and Portland. As for the smaller cities, it's basically a list of where Clearwire has pre-WiMAX services today -- meaning it's pretty straightforward for the company to add the new radios to existing towers and light the new technology.
And it looks like some of those small markets are already launching; see our story today:
http://www.sidecutreports.com/2009/08/01/clearwire-adding-smaller-markets-to-4g-coverage-map/
$79.99 a month for 3G/4G plan and no 4G only plan? that sucks! I was hoping to have 4G only at reasonable price like Xohm where you can have 2 4G modem and $50 a month.
Clear has been pushing their service in my area. Home and mobile for about what I pay now for a Sprint card. Tempting.
But there's no mention of roaming when you leave Clear's smallish native area, and there seem to be a lot of unhappy customers. Google searches find a lot of people who seem to have had worse customer service issues than even with Sprint, and that's downright scary.
If Clear wants me to commit to a two-year contract, they need to show that they will be around, that the service works, and that they can be trusted to deliver what they promise. Otherwise why bother.
Plus, Sprint is hiring 4G sales folks in Austin, so they must be ramping up.
Why are they doing second tier cities? Worthless, cut out the bitch cities and go for NYC, LA, Seattle. Pathetic!
I go to Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga. I feel that it is kinda random that 4G would be coming to our small town so soon, but there is one major reason that could be the cause of this. Milledgeville is the closest "city" to The Ritz Carleton at Reynolds Plantation. The Ritz at Reynolds holds many high profile events for many fortune 500 companies year round and it is probably being placed in the area to service some of the really influential people that visit there.
Yeah! Austin 4th Quater. Hopefully the TP2 is Wimax compatible.
I live in Dallas and have terrible reception with my Tour. ANy hope that rolling this out will benefit 3G users? Are they adding new towers or just modding old ones?
Unofficially, WiMax is already operational in DC. Part of proximity to Baltimore and Sprint's presence here. It's not full coverage, but as an example, @chrisbachmann has his WiMax card and uses it regularly in and around his work in DC.
Where in DC do you get 4G coverage?
Where in DC does your friend get 4G coverage?