A handful of technology writers were on the Chicago River Monday night to participate in a live demonstration of Sprint Nextel’s WiMax network.
In theory, this next-generation wireless technology can transmit data over vast areas as quickly as your cable modem can shoot it over a wire. But no one had ever tried to build a big WiMax network until this year, when Sprint announced that it would install WiMax in many of the nation’s largest cities.
None of those networks are open to the public yet, but reporters generally praised what they saw Monday night. Here’s an excerpt from the review at Ars Technica:
We also watched some talking heads on CNN.com. In both windowed and full-screen modes, the video quality was very good: no dropped frames or hiccups of any kind. It was similar to what I get at home with my 8Mbps/1Mbps cable service from Comcast….
Both the performance and experience were far superior to Verizon’s EV-DO service….Speed aside, the browsing experience was much different than any other mobile broadband I’ve used. Unlike other wireless services, which feel “laggy” and offer a markedly different experience than a wired connection, the WiMAX demo was more akin to DSL and cable.
The first two cities — Washington and Chicago — were to have come online late this year, but Sprint has pushed that back to March or April. Dallas is slated for launch later next year. Sprint has suffered some hard times of late, but if this roll-out goes smoothly, it’s going to be a real game changer both for the company and for wireless devices.
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