WiMAX 2 standard, and its theoretical 1Gbps downloads, to be finalized soon
By Tim Stevens 
posted August 15th 2010 10:10AM
posted August 15th 2010 10:10AM
While WiMAX isn't exactly streaming through the air everywhere at this point, domestically it has a solid head-start on LTE. Despite that, with many major players (like Verizon and AT&T) already choosing the latter of those two, WiMAX has a tough fight ahead of it for 4G supremacy. Maybe its successor will charm the competition, WiMAX 2 -- the artist formerly known as 802.16m. That standard will boast theoretical speeds of 1Gbps for downloads, though users are rather more likely to see something in the 100Mbps range (still a huge jump over what gets an Evo 4G user excited today). When can we expect all this bandwidth? The standard is due to be finalized in November, then hardware is expected to be ratified through 2011 before getting bolted to towers in 2012 where it will, thankfully, be fully compatible with O.G. WiMAX devices. Something good to look forward to, or too little too late to hold off the LTE hoards?
Why dont they just roll this out now instead of the lousy in comparison wimax 1
@Nintendoftl
specs and hw for WiMax v2 broadcasting not finalized yet.
@Xcharles718
Why dont they just roll out WiMax 9 with 10tb/s to every city in the world tommorow, and make it free to use, with no data limits.....
Well maybe since they seemed to have skipped Detroit completely with WiMax, they'll just give us WiMax 2 instead. Maybe make it up to us by letting us be one of the first cities to get it.
@roxics
they might just do that, makes no sense rolling out a old version of tech by next year.
I get 4.2 Mbps download on 3G on my iPhone 4. About as fast as my effin qwest dsl. Maybe because where I live is a brand new neighborhood with not alot of people yet.