"First" US WiMAX deployment goes live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
[Image courtesy of TerryDreams]
Posts with tag mobile wimax
Even as Sprint tentatively rolls out the XOHM network here in the States, the largest Indian telecom company is planning to build a mobile WiMAX network covering three states on the subcontinent capable of serving 250 million people. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited is leaning on Soma Networks to build the broadband-speed network in response to government requirement that 20 million broadband lines be in service by 2010. The WiMAX rollout will first hit the largest and most-connected states, but BSNL is planning on extending the network if things go well. Soma says it's shipping thousands of base stations to get the network operational at full speed, and that when it's done, 400 Indian cities will be covered, with downstream speeds of 1.5 megabits per seconds. No word on when that might be, but the race is officially on, Sprint.
Despite rumor and conjecture to the contrary, Sprint's XOHM-branded WiMax service plans are alive and well. Well enough to soft-launch anyway. The Chicago, Washington D.C., and Baltimore pipes will all go live "in the next few days," according to Ben Shen, VP of Product Management and Partnership Development. Official launch is still (somewhat) expected for Q2 2008. Business as usual while they court prospective financial suitors, perhaps.
Part of the WiMAX World festivities taking place this week, Motorola was on hand in Chicago last night to demonstrate fragments of the Mobile WiMAX build-out it's been throwing together to support the upcoming launch of Sprint's Xohm service. A leisurely cruise took curious onlookers down the Chicago River while Moto demonstrated a variety of WiMAX-friendly goodies like VoIP and streaming video, with handoffs flawlessly (apparently) transitioning the signal from access point to access point amongst canyons of skyscrapers, steel, and cement. The company also took its demo onto the "streets along the Chicago River while driving at speeds beyond 50 mph," a clear violation of local traffic laws, so we're hoping Moto's got some money socked away in its meager coffers to pony up some fines. Anyway, if all goes well, the demos foretell a late '07 soft launch of Xohm's Chicago network, with a commercial release in April of next year.
The WiMAX train is starting to pick up steam -- and with services like Sprint's XOHM scheduled to launch in the next year, we're expecting to see a lot more devices like Motorola's CPEi 300 WiMAX modem hit shelves. The company is showing off the wireless broadband modem at the WiMAX World conference in Chicago this week, and seems bullish about targeting the "unserved or underserved" with the device. The unit features one "data port" (we're guessing Ethernet) and two RJ-11 ports for VoIP access, and runs on the 802.16e "Mobile WiMAX" standard. We'd love to know when we'll be able to buy this thing and how much it's going to cost -- or even just what it looks like -- but it looks like we'll have to wait a bit to find out more.
It's been some time since Airspan kicked out a new device enabling laptop (or desktop, for that matter) users to hop on the Mobile WiMAX highway, but that's changing thanks to its recently-unveiled MiMAX USB. This USB 2.0 dongle "turns any laptop into a high performance Mobile WiMAX client," and it marks the first product in the Mobile WiMAX MIMO family. As with the 16eUSB that came before it, this gizmo allows users to connect to "virtually every Mobile WiMAX network that is deployed worldwide," and supports "all of the target Wave 2 MIMO Mobile WiMAX certification profiles (2.3GHz, 2.5GHz, 3.3 - 3.8GHz, and 4.9 - 5.8GHz)." Furthermore, the MiMAX USB even plays nice with licensed and unlicensed frequencies, and if you're looking to detect WiMAX networks before flipping on your machine, the optional MiMAX Finder should do the trick. Sadly, there's no mention of a price just yet, but we've got a feeling those details could be loosed during next week's WiMAX World USA in Chicago.
The Xohm website is now hot, making yesterday's rumor pretty incontestable at this point. Although seeing a press release would really seal the deal. The teaser site simply states that Xohm is coming in the Spring of 2008 and promises to "expand the internet experience" to a new class of internet enabled devices.
Fresh from showing off its Mobile WiMax wares at the recent 3GSM conference, Samsung's now providing some of its gear to the U.S. Army, who's apparently considering the speedy wireless technology for possible military use. Unsurprisingly, neither party is spilling a whole lot of details on the arrangement, with Samsung only saying that the Army's Communications Electronics Research & Development Engineering Center (or CERDEC) will spend several months evaluating the equipment, measuring the performance of both mobile users and mobile base stations in a military environment, among other undisclosed things. What is fairly clear is how eagerly Samsung will be anticipating the results, as Korea's Hankook newspaper speculates that a deal with the U.S. military could be worth as much as $3 billion for the company.








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