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criggs
join:2000-07-14
New York, NY

criggs to chris92

Member

to chris92

Re: How's your speed for December 2010?

And the U600 also has 4G WiMax capability, when and if it gets to your neighborhood. That's the modem I have, and the WiMax so far has been solid as a rock (I'm in midtown Manhattan, NYC).
chris92
join:2008-09-20
Coal Valley, IL

chris92

Member

That's good to know, Thanks! The manager at the store said that they were working on the towers in our area and that we would get it soon, and that Sprint was very serious about getting 4G everywhere, but unfortunately I don't know if he was feeding me a line of bull...
criggs
join:2000-07-14
New York, NY

criggs

Member

In a way he was, I think. You see, as far as I know, Sprint has just about NOTHING to say when it comes to the buildup of their 4G WiMax network. That is being handled entirely by another company, Clearwire. I believe Sprint just rents space on Clearwire's network.

I also expect the speed of the rollout to slow down a bit unfortunately this year. I know that the Sprint coverage map for NYC, which supposedly was "covered" on November 1 last year, looks like a piece of Swiss cheese, and has looked like that for over a month, so the rollout may be either stalled or moving at a snail's pace.

Rumors have also been flying that Clearwire, which took on some debt to finish the initial 4G WiMax rollout last year, is again in financial difficulty. Also their chair quit at the end of 2010, for reasons unknown but which some have speculated may be related to their financial uncertainty.

There have also been rumors that Sprint wants to switch from the WiMax technology to the LTE technology. Whether they would be able to do that using Clearwire's existing network, or whether they'd have to dump that network and build a new one, or lease space on Verizon Wireless' LTE network, is something I don't know.

There may be an engineer reading this post who might know the answer to that question.

Cheese
Premium Member
join:2003-10-26
Naples, FL

Cheese

Premium Member

said by criggs:

In a way he was, I think. You see, as far as I know, Sprint has just about NOTHING to say when it comes to the buildup of their 4G WiMax network. That is being handled entirely by another company, Clearwire. I believe Sprint just rents space on Clearwire's network.

I also expect the speed of the rollout to slow down a bit unfortunately this year. I know that the Sprint coverage map for NYC, which supposedly was "covered" on November 1 last year, looks like a piece of Swiss cheese, and has looked like that for over a month, so the rollout may be either stalled or moving at a snail's pace.

Rumors have also been flying that Clearwire, which took on some debt to finish the initial 4G WiMax rollout last year, is again in financial difficulty. Also their chair quit at the end of 2010, for reasons unknown but which some have speculated may be related to their financial uncertainty.

There have also been rumors that Sprint wants to switch from the WiMax technology to the LTE technology. Whether they would be able to do that using Clearwire's existing network, or whether they'd have to dump that network and build a new one, or lease space on Verizon Wireless' LTE network, is something I don't know.

There may be an engineer reading this post who might know the answer to that question.

The reason Sprint has been so aggressive with WiMax instead of LTE is that the company has already acquired a lot of the spectrum with its acquisition of ClearWire a few years ago. For more on 4G technology, you can read our quick primer on the subject.

»www.cnet.com/8301-17918_ ··· -85.html

I would consider it Sprint.
criggs
join:2000-07-14
New York, NY

criggs

Member

Thank you. That was a succinct overall primer.
said by Cheese:

I would consider it Sprint.

Sorry, missed you on that turn! You would consider _what_ Sprint?