Portland's up to speed. About four months after
Baltimore became the first U.S. city to receive a full-on WiMax
rollout, Clearwire on Tuesday announced the debut of "Clear," its 4G WiMax wireless broadband service, to Portland, Ore. At its basic level, the open network provides average download speeds of 2Mbps to 4Mbps.
"Today is a historic day for the evolution of mobile computing
and communications services in Portland and the U.S.," said Clearwire
CEO Benjamin G. Wolff in a statement. "Clearwire is reinventing
wireless by delivering an unmatched combination of Internet speed and
mobility."
Portland's WiMax net casts on a 700-square-mile area that
serves about 1.7 million people. According to Clearwire, which
represents the recently combined 4G wireless businesses of Clearwire
andSprint (NYSE: S)-Nextel, residence-based 4G plans in Portland start at $20 a month and mobile plans start at $30 a month.
For residences, Kirkland, Wash.-based Clearwire is offering a wireless high-speed modem, leasable from Motorola (NYSE:MOT) for $4.99 a month. For mobile users, the official Clear USB modem is also from Motorola and costs $49.99. Visitors or anyone else can buy a day's worth of Portland's WiMax service for $10.
Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire closed a $14.5 billion merger deal on Dec.
1 to combine their respective 4G wireless businesses. That deal
included $3.2 billion from a list of other investors comprising
Comcast, Intel, Google, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.
"WiMAX is a new wireless technology that raises the bar on a truly
mobile and affordable Internet experience for consumers," said Sean
Maloney, executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer
atIntel (NSDQ: INTC),
in a statement. "Intel, along with Clearwire and its partners, are
proud to bring U.S. customers a next-generation world-leading broadband
solution that redefines how, when and where consumers interact with the
Internet."
Acer, Asus, Dell (NSDQ:Dell),
Fujitsu, Lenovo, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba and others have all
planned Intel Centrino 2-powered notebooks with embedded WiMax for
2009.
Baltimore's WiMax, which currently operates under Sprint and
Clearwire's XOHM brand, will be rebranded as Clear in the next few
months, according to the company.
Clearwire operates prestandard WiMax networks in 46 cities and towns
across 16 states. The company has not seen other major WiMax rollouts
come to fruition; it had previously suggested Washington, D.C., and
Chicago would both be live by the end of 2008.
source : http://www.crn.com/
