Where are the grand scale wireless routers I heard about over two years ago?
I remember reading about mega wireless routers that would be stationed in municipalities that would reach everywhere and be able to provide a connection to a large community of users. Was I dreaming? Did this technology get buried or is it being employed in big cities?
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They were tried and abandoned. Too hard to monetize, because it’s too hard to meter.
I think you might be thinking of WiMAX. The technical details are a bit over my head but it’s definitely happening slowly and works pretty well.
How Stuff Works has a pretty down-to-earth explanation of WiMAX here: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/wimax.htm (much easier to understand than the Wikipedia article.)
Municipal WiMax and Wifi aren’t happening. I imagine the cell phone, cable and telecomm companies fought it pretty hard, maybe they won.
Instead, 4G is happening. It actually sounds viable for me to drop my landline, DSL and cell for a single 4G account. I wish I could try it for a week with a risk-free contract.
4G simply refers to the 4th generation of wireless standards. In fact, Sprint’s current 4G network uses WiMAX. As for other WiMAX networks, there are already several hundred networks deployed in over 100 countries.
At least in the Seattle area it’s very much active (at least the marketing is) – The local WiMAX network is run by Clear (formerly ClearWire), and Comcast 4G also uses it, as does Sprint 4G, and probably Verizon 4G (But I’m not sure of that last one)
@davidgro Verizon uses LTE (3GPP Long Term Evolution) as its 4G network. It’s technically not “4G” since it doesn’t comply with certain standards, but the next version (called LTE Advanced) will.
@mhl12 Sprint’s current 4G network uses WiMAX
I stand corrected, thanks, I did not know thta.
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