What’s the Fuss with WiMax?
Ok, so it’s official. Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will form a new venture to be called Clearwire and expected to be finalized by fourth quarter of this year. The company which also includes Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will invest a total of $3.2bn and take another 22 per cent chunk in the company. Sprint will hold onto the remaining 51 per cent.
For ordinary Joes, that means mobile video on your laptops and smartphones, mobile broadband, a default Google search on your Sprint cellphones, a WiMax version of Amazon Kindle perhaps and ads, ads, ads on upcoming Android-based phones. With Comcast in tow, your P2P habits may well become mobile too. Though Comcast may limit your broadband use just the same as it does with BitTorrent.
As GigaOM notes, WiMax may have a head start over LTE of AT&T and Verizon Wireless though that still remains to be seen. And oh one more thing, we might see WiMax-powered iPhone clones too. More on New York Times and GMANews.tv.