This is interesting this came up just now: here at our motel, we've just
installed a WiMax system; unlike ClearWire, it looks like an old
Motorola Canopy system, with a rooftop antenna pointed downtown, but
performance wise it beats both in terms of latency and raw speed.  Part
of the solution was to transfer our lines going through a T-1 to VoIP
and reduce the number from 14 to 4, though we have to keep a couple for
the fire alarm and fax, apparently.  We had a lot of problems getting
everything working, which came down mostly to a bad radio, but these
guys kept working at it until it was fixed, so I have no problem
recommending them:

http://www.televolve.com -- The phone people, doing VoIP on top of the
WiMax company below--ask for Carlos.
http://www.westernwimax.net formerly Black Rock Broadband -- Tim, the
main tech guy and part-owner, is an ex-Cisco guy.

If you buy the phone service, Televolve will handle the ordering of the
WiMax service as well as the changeover from the previous carrier.  The
only part they couldn't handle was the PBX reprogramming and punch block
rewiring.  I don't think I can recommend the PBX guys, not because he
didn't know what he was doing or anything, but at $150/hour, you'd think
he was a lawyer or heart surgeon!

Mike

On Mon, 18 May 2009 17:03:55 -0700, "Joseph Sinclair"
<plug-discussion@stcaz.net> said:
> There are some substantial differences between WiMax and WiFi.
> The Muni WiFi nets are about providing 802.11 throughout an area.
> Considering the limited range of the 2.4GHz band used, it's fairly
> difficult and there tend to be a lot of small dead zones.
> WiMax is a wide-area technology in a completely different (and fully
> licensed) band.  WiMax placements cannot be done by consumers because you
> have to pay a lot of money for the location-specific license and meet FCC
> siting requirements.  ClearWire holds most (about $3 billion worth
> transferred from Sprint) of the WiMax licenses in the US.
> WiMax is more of a competitor to 3G cellular. Some have put it forward as
> the 4G cellular standard, but it's not clear what will happen there,
> since Sprint and Intel prefer WiMax, but NGMN chose LTE, and many
> carriers don't care which is used, as long as everyone uses the same
> radio standard.
> 
> The Cisco thing is about providing the base-station equipment to
> ClearWire and offering a Linksys box for WiMax-to-WiFi similar to routers
> already available from various competitors for 3G-cellular-to-WiFi.
> 
> Hope that helps.
> 
> 
> Mike Schwartz wrote:
> > This link:
> > http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=339523&source=CWNLE_nlt_thisweek_2009-05-18
> > 
> > points to an article ("Cisco takes aim at WiMax") from Computerworld.
> > Does this relate to this old thread? :
> > http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20080225.172251.1ee32f7a.en.html
> > [OT: (is this OT?) ["Tempe ... isn't alone"] www.computerworld.com on
> > municipal wifi woes]
> > or, is my ignorance about the term [WiMax] even more than I thought?
> > "see also": this other old post:
> > http://lists.plug.phoenix.az.us/lurker/message/20080324.232746.84d13a21.en.html
> > [Re: OT: (is this OT?) udpate - [news item: "Sebastopol"] (was: Re: [...]
> > municipal wifi woes)]
> > (including, the link it has, to a NY Times story...)
> > 
> > 
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