Sprint Rolls out WiMAX Access 156
Tokin84 writes "Today, Sprint announced that it would pour over $4.5Bn into a 2.5Ghz WiMAX system to be rolled out across the country. From the article: 'Sprint Nextel, the nation's largest holder of radio spectrum in the precious 2.5 GHz band, has reportedly chosen to deploy Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access (WiMAX) as the foundation of its technology platform for the carrier's mobile broadband Next-Generation Network (NGN) build-out.'"
Here's an idea... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
So what? It's harder to sniff than cable, ethernet, or dsl.
And besides, most wireless point-multipoint systems do encrypt all traffic or sell the option.
For instance:
http://motorola.canopywireless.com/solutions/isp/ [canopywireless.com]
http://www.alvarion.com/bwawimaxnewbreezenetb100/ [alvarion.com]
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
what took them so long? if they'd started this (nextel or whoever) a few years ago the costs would have been much less (energy/inflation) and they'd be dominating the market... now maybe i'll consider sprint.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:1)
Here's a reason (Score:3, Informative)
The current wireless providers cancel accounts when people actually use them; the boards [broadbandreports.com] are littered with EVDO users complaining that, for example, Verizon axed them when their throughput hit 10 gigs a month. Heck, even Consumer Affairs [consumeraffairs.com] got shafted.
Will there be similar limitations on WiMax? Without a reasonable TOS, I'd turn it down.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
And the best DSL I can get is 512Mb down. (Sprint Business)
This is Vegas for Chrissakes. Not BFE Idaho!
Sprint can take a flying @&*#.
Fix the services you have NOW. don't add more.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
sprint ~ 1.8ghz
nextel ~ 800mhz
sprint > *
BFE Idaho? (Score:2)
Re:BFE Idaho? (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
The FCC said no! (Score:2, Insightful)
All you got was a near useless low power set.
In 1984 Apple Computer petitioned the FCC for what is alot like WiMAX,
A 10k to 15k network adaptor.
But AT&T and others sweet talked the FCC out of the deal.
Since this would by pass the local telco monopoly.
So now you are going to pay for your access to
the airwaves, its a lot like paying for your freedom of speech.
Sounds like its time to start dumping Tea in the harbor boys.
Simple. (Score:2)
Wireless is great for mobile applications, limited user base, and for broadcast style systems.
It is ideal for one transmitter and many receivers. WiMAX will be great for mobile and remote users. Even good for point to point links. I would rather have fiber in my home and office
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
How about fibre-to-the-curb or even better, to my demark point instead. Wireless is nice, but I spend 90% of my on-line time connected to a wire.
You obviously don't get out much.
I predict the logical successor to the 4x4 SUV will be a vehicle with a desk in place of the dashboard, because I swear more business is being done on the road than in boardrooms.
excuse me officer, do you have an appointment?
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, it's not like the government didn't give them money to do it already. [newnetworks.com]
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
I already have it [verizon.com]. 15 megabit/sec down, 2 megabit/sec up. Finally, I have true high-definition TV and static-free phones, as well.
Of course, it depends on where you live. I was fortunate to be in one of the early deployment areas. However, the speed of the service depends on the competition. Where I live, 15/2 is the highest speed for a reasonable price. Elsewhere, people are getting 20/5 (or even higher) for a similar price.
Once it's installed and configured correctly, it has been reliable. But, there have been administrative problems every step along the way.
FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is all the spectrum is being hogged up with the analog cable channels. The cable companies are itching to get rid of these - once the price point is low enough on set top boxes so they can give them for free to anyone who needs them, you're going to see available bandwidth over coax explode.
The coax pipe is very thick. It is not as thick as a fibre pipe, but it is more than enough to be able to drive all the HD streams and internet porn you could ever want.
30 Mbps? (Score:2)
Where, what's rent like, and do I have to learn a new language or wear funny hats?
Oh, and can you acutally USE it for more than a couple of days without going over your limit for the month?
Re:30 Mbps? (Score:2)
Oh, Cablevision. Forget that! (Score:2)
I get webpages fast enough. All I care about is server and P2P capabilities. I'm better off with cheap DSL since I'm actually allowed to use it.
Re:Oh, Cablevision. Forget that! (Score:2)
Locally capped 20Mbps is much better than uncapped 6Mbps.
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:2)
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:2)
the switching node is fiber so.. no you don't share it with thousands of other households.. mabey a few but not many
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:2)
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:2)
5,000 feet is jack diddly shit. Most subscribers live over 10,000 feet. In most of the places where people currently have trouble getting broadband, which is to say more rural l
Re:FTTH is Unnecessary (Score:2)
Adelphia already got rid of them. They programed the boxes over thier wires. So far, my internet connection has yet to see a speed boost, and the box now frequently 'drops' frames and sound. Its very frust
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, Sprint doesn't have cable facilities already in place passing by subdivisions with thousands of potential subscribers. Verizon, AT&T and (for this week) Bellsouth do. Those are the guys you should be asking for fiber.
I expect wireless connectivity to take off in a big way over the next 2 or 3 years, and Sprint's taking this step to try to be at t
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Overland Park you can't work in IT without having a few ex Sprint people around as well as coworkers with spouses who work there. We hear a lot of stuff.
Word is that Nextel people are taking over Sprint management from the inside. They may be able to pull this WiMax thing off if they can get the internal politics and bureaucracy under control.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
If Sprint WiMax can save another city the troubles that faced my city, I am in favor of it. I would also like to have full coverage no matter where I go within my area.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2, Funny)
I'm not going to really get on a bandwagon here, but its that type of thought process that can really hold things (companies, technology, individuals) back. You are too busy spending your time either assesing the short-term "cost" to even realize the future benefits. Granted it a good thing to have people look at the drawbacks/impacts, but you didn't give a single good reason why they shouldn't have run the line...your lawn will grow back.
Your probably some
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
We also had the problem that there was no coordination in laying the fiber. SBC might dig up a street one week and lay some fiber and then Everest would come in the next month and dig it up again. It made a mess of the streets and traffic. You could hardly go anywhere without it being one lane and
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
They just boosted the value of your pro
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:2)
1) Demarc. As in demarcation.
2) It costs a fuck of a lot more to maintain a bunch of fiber than it does to maintain an antenna.
Wires are the Old Way(tm). The future is a huge sloppy mesh-networked topology that will allow the network to extend itself to anyplace there's sufficient numbers of people. Actually, if you got really froggy, you could use some h
Investitudinally speaking... (Score:4, Funny)
"4G" "NGN" "WiMAX" "UMTS-based technology dubbed TD-CDMA" "Flash-OFDM" Nice load of acronyms, that's $4.5Bn invested.
I for one welcome our new Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology platform foundation mobile broadband Next-Generation Network (NGN) build-out 4G overlords.
Re:Investitudinally speaking... (Score:2)
Missed one!
Re:Investitudinally speaking... (Score:2, Funny)
IFOWON WiMAX TPF mobile broadband NGN build-out 4G overlords.
Re:Investitudinally speaking... (Score:2)
Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich. (Score:4, Insightful)
A better system would be for public/gov to create a network of towers for wimax/wifi.
I BETYA SPRINT WILL MAKE WIMAX REALLY AFFORDABLE FOR EVERYONE !!!!
http://www.acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&
http://www.greaterdemocracy.org/OpenSpectrumFAQ.h
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_spectrum [wikipedia.org]
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
I haven't
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2, Insightful)
A better system would be for public/gov to create a network of towers for wimax/wifi.
You mean you don't see this as a salvo in the public/private WiFi battle?
"Senator Claghorn here, and I most strenuously, I say strenuosly protest the people's tax dollars bein' spent competing with this fine company. I say we shut down the government funded public service and give the money back to the other porkbarrel projects it was so wrongly taken from. Now excuse me, I have a golf outting this afternoon with some
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
State-sponsored monopolies have been used successfully in the past. I would prefer my communications not to be owned by the government.
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2, Troll)
Do you believe the phone companies loved cannibalizing their own product ?
I love getting nickel and dimed by the jackal phone co's for web access.
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
I think government involvement is essential to the buildout of infrastructure. Otherwise a large portion of the population won't be served. I don't believe government ownership of the infrastructure is in our best interests, and that's something that's consistently believed in the US but not always in other countries. The US accomplished these things through granted monopolies, regulation, subsidies and mandates.
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
I would bet that an infinite number of universities with an infinite number of researchers doing an infinite number of networking experiments (with an infinite number of generous alumni) could create something similar to the modern Internet.
Gob'Mint vs libertarian-socialism (Score:2)
For years a group of private citizens have been setting up free wifi all over the city. This is what I like to think of as a good example of anarchy in action, or libertarian-socialism.
Problem is, now the city has given a contract to a company to provide free wifi all over the city.
Well, in and ove itself that isn't a problem, but some have speculated that this co
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
The end points and suppliers should all be non-government (with the possible exception of water as thats is a natural resource). To bad there isn't a common-sense party that is largely libertarian but uses common sense and acknowledges where the government is useful (or should be useful).
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:3, Insightful)
WiFi is not good for connectivity, it is way too short-range, especially if one county needs 60,000 radios (like in the county Ann Arbor, MI is in) to make such a sufficient mesh to cover a
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Riiiight. Government entities are our good buddies. They are so citizen friendly and would never lie & cheat us.
Companies are nothing but a group of people (yes, real human beings like me and maybe you) that are all working towards comon goals that will hopefully produce a profit. These humans include stock holders, board members, directors/managers, and employees/volunteers. There i
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
If the choices are government or a telco we're already screwed.
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
OK I agree, but ask yourself why the telecom industry is full of inefficiency and bureaucracy. It's the same reason that the insurance and pharmaceutical industries are full of inefficiency and bureaucracy here in the US. IMHO it is due to government/political involvement and the lack of consumer/voter action. We can't blame a "company" for problems...
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Sigh, maybe in a perfect world, but that has not been the goal for ANY government organization I've worked for in the past 20 years. The last people gov't employees worry about serving are actual citizens and gov't managers seem to only worry about spending their budget (waste anywhere they can hide it) so that they don't lose any money in next year's budget. I'll take an organization that is profit driven over waste driven any day.
Re:Spectrum belongs to the public and not the rich (Score:2)
Cell phone companies are crooks.
positive space (Score:4, Funny)
I have never felt more confident after that statement.
So many standards (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So many standards (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So many standards (Score:2)
Have you seen what the europeans are paying for text messages?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So many standards (Score:1)
The Environment (Score:5, Funny)
We've already done tremendous and very ironic damage with air conditioning. In our interest of keeping our working and living spaces comfortably climate controlled we forgot one thing: thermal energy is like water. If you take heat from one space and pump it out, it has to go somewhere. We've been using ACs in our houses, our cars, and businesses, and god knows where else to pump the heat out. Well, where does all that heat go? Into the outside air. And what happens when you pump water into the outdoors? You make ponds, lakes and oceans. Same thing with heat, only worse. All that heat is now coming back to get us. But, even more irony... because it's getting hotter out there, we're using our ACs more than ever before and pumping MORE heat out! I predict that by 2015, the typical summer temps on the equator will be 180F. They're already averaging about 140F and that's up from the relatively cool 95F they used to be back in the 70s. We've got a huge problem folks and WiMax is only going to make it worse. Stop them before it's too late.
Oh... and the internet is a series of tubes.
Re:The Environment (Score:2, Insightful)
I rate this troll 9/10. Bravo.
Re:The Environment (Score:1)
-Todd
Re:The Environment (Score:1)
Mein Gott... you do realize they've been using Microwaves for years now without fried Bird falling from the sky, right?
Troll.
Re:The Environment (Score:2)
you do realize that birds are somewhat frequently cooked by military radar - sometimes on purpose - and thus you are completely wrong, right?
Re:The Environment (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Environment (Score:2)
The distribution of temperature is also highly important. If you disagree, I suggest you spend your next summer vacation in an active volcano.
think about this little item: the "conveyor" (global current) is powered by ice. When the heat moves toward the poles the ice melts. When the ice melts, the conveyor stops.
Won't that be exciting? So much for anything like stability of weather.
Re:The Environment (Score:2)
No, no, no, wrong! Bad headline! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No, no, no, wrong! Bad headline! (Score:2)
Re:No, no, no, wrong! Bad headline! (Score:5, Insightful)
They do it for the clicks, man.
Review the Temporal Guide to Slashdot Headline Reading:
1. Present tense means wait a few years.
2. Future tense means it'll never happen.
3. Past tense means SlashBack.
hmm global warming? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:hmm global warming? (Score:2)
Another neat idea - get your PHONE SERVICE WORKING (Score:1)
Re:Another neat idea - get your PHONE SERVICE WORK (Score:2)
Wireless revolution (Score:1)
On a more serious note, a unified Wimax and the ubiquitous and mobile high speed data it will provide will revolutionize society as we know it. I'm just sayin is all..
Stupid headline (Score:5, Informative)
and the monopoly continues... (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the major complaints about the telecom industry is how it is controlled by a natural monopoly -- that is, there are only so many physical fibers that can be distributed around the country. It means you can't have competition: A competing telecom company can't just tear up the streets and install their own lines to compete with big business.
So we've always been told that wireless will change all that.. as soon as WiMAX is available, suddenly we won't be restricted to physical lines! We'll be able to run community networks and municipal public internet access.
But then.. this article reminds me that of course the people who will be installing all the wireless access points are going to be the big telecom companies. They'll still be the ones charging for access. And there is only so much bandwidth to go around... much less, in fact, than what is available on the wires. So as long as companies like Sprint jump in and take it first, no one will be able to compete.
Sad to see that wireless won't be "the answer" to cheap and available telecom.
Re:and the monopoly continues... (Score:2)
WiMax is intended to be offered in given spectrum allocations, but the standard. Let's say WiMax can get 20Mbps per TV channel's worth of bandwidth, but I'm just using the ATSC standard, WiMax might allow for more. With the common 50:1 oversell rate for typical broadband service, that provides 1000 households with 1Mbps per TV channel space. Take a tower with six 60 degree sector antennas, and that one channel, for one tower
Re:and the monopoly continues... (Score:2)
a few weeks using Canopy now (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WiMAX Pirate Stations (Score:3, Interesting)
One: WiMAX is an open protocol that'll work over a variety of spectra. It's possible to do it over unlisenced bands, UHF (700mhz), MMDS (2.5ghz), and just about anything else you can't shake a stick at. (I assume you can't, anyway. Can diviners locate radio towers?) But one way or another, it's already on the market, and it already works its way around a WiFi wap well enough.
Two: WiFi (54 meg per sec with 802.11g, considerably more with 802.11n) will continue to be faster, easier/cheaper to i
Re:WiMAX Pirate Stations (Score:2)
They'll do both. They'll go with (A) if you're far enough out from their nearest tower and they think your signal will be weak. They'll go with (B) f
Re:WiMAX Pirate Stations (Score:2)
Re:WiMAX Pirate Stations (Score:2)
That's not what I meant. I currently operate a 2.5ghz system that converts all signals into the 30-900mhz ranges before it's processed. Don't know whether there's room for such devices in the WiMAX spec, but they are available.
It's handy for several reasons. One, it makes it possible to use standard cable-industry test equipment, to rebroadcast TV over the MMDS, and to use regular DOCSIS compliant cablemodems, albeit with rather unusual modulation.
Re:$4.5Bn ??? (Score:2)
Besides, 'BN' is already taken [thefreedictionary.com].