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WiMAX Internet Service Now Commercially Available in Atlanta
US WiMAX provider Clearwire officially launched its CLEAR™ WiMAX service in Atlanta on Tuesday. The Atlanta metro area receives the distinction of becoming the largest Internet hot spot in the US with service available to three million people across 1,200 square miles.
The announcement on Tuesday follows the soft launch of the city a little over a
month ago. The launch will officially kick off early today with
festivities planed at Atlantic Station located in midtown Atlanta, including a
CLEAR-branded hot air balloon and live demonstrations of WiMAX products and
services. In addition, CLEAR and Intel will announce plans to provide
dozens of embedded WiMAX laptops based on Intel® Centrino® 2 processor
technology, as well as netbooks based on Intel® Atom™ processors, with CLEAR
service to Atlanta Public Schools before the start of the next school year.
"By delivering broadband connectivity to people, and not just places, we now
offer Atlanta the freedom to enjoy super-fast Internet access wherever they go
in our coverage area," said Marc Brachman, General Manager of Atlanta market for
Clearwire. "Whether it's a busy parent who wants full Internet
connectivity in the back of the family minivan, a small business owner looking
to conduct online video chats with customers from the field, a person looking to
access entertainment sites like Hulu without being tied to a fixed-location, or
a college student simply looking for one Internet service provider to meet their
needs at home and on-the-go, CLEAR delivers. We're providing a valuable,
new kind of Internet service designed to make our customers' lives more
enjoyable and more productive, wherever they happen to be in our coverage area."
As part of a multi-year network build-out plan, Clearwire's 4G network will be
available in major metropolitan areas across the United States. In
addition to Atlanta, mobile WiMAX is already available in Baltimore, Maryland,
and Portland, Oregon. Clearwire plans to officially launch service in Las
Vegas later this summer (although service is already currently
available on its website).
The company plans to bring CLEAR to 80 markets and up to 120 million people by
the end of 2010. Some of the additional markets planned to launch in 2009
include Chicago, Charlotte, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and
Seattle. Some of the additional markets planned to launch in 2010 include
New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston and the San Francisco Bay Area.
It should be interesting to see how the Clearwire Atlanta launch unfolds in the
coming months, especially on AT&T's home turf and its aggressive marketing of
its own mobile broadband offerings. The key for success with Clearwire
will be in "clearly" differentiating the performance advantages of its WiMAX
network relative to AT&Ts 3G network.
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It's All Moto WiMAX gear in Clear's Atlanta network
http://connectedhome2go.com/2009/06/16/motorola-goes-2-for-2-with-clearwire-atlanta-launch/
Comment: This shows yet again (see the wimax360 post on Saudi Arabia) that Moto is very much alive and doing well in the WiMAX equipment and CPE business. Moto and Samsung seem to be the only two companies supplying both network equipment and CPE for WiMAX
Is Roaming available for Clear/Sprint WiMAX?
Does Clearwire plan any roaming with other US WiMAX networks, e.g from Digital Bridge, Nth Air, etc
Mobile WiMAX is a loser without roaming
More importantly, roaming would be mandatory. When Alan and I go to his cabin, my metro PCS mobile phone doesn't work because VZW has a monopoly on cell phone service there. Even if a mobile WiMAX device only supported Internet access, I would want it to work when I'm outside of my service provider's coverage area. So roaming amongst WiMAX carriers would be critical.
Alan has been writing articles about mobile WiMAX since early 2004, but it still is not widely available in the U.S. and not available at all in CA. That's over five years of smoke and mirrors to me. What good is a standard if it's not widely implemented and roaming agreements are not in place?
Atlanta CLEAR will "smoke" AT&Ts HSPA upgrade
Mobile WiMAX in Atlanta, as implemented by Clearwire and riding on Sprint's already-upgraded backbone network, is expected to deliver download speeds of 4 to 6 Mbps with bursts "exceeding" 15 Mbps – performance that, in the company's words far surpassing even the peak theoretical speeds of 7.2 Mbps in upcoming 3G upgrades." In other words, CLEAR should smoke the near-term performance of AT&T's HSPA 7.2 Mbps upgrades expected to be done by the end of the year.
http://4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/wimax/topics/wimax/articles/58235-potential-promise-wimax.htm
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