What will make WiMAX a must-have for me
   
What will make WiMAX service a must-have for you?
  
Esme Vos | October 2, 2008 at 8:15 am
   
Marguerite Reardon has written a long article on CNET asking whether Sprint’s WiMAX service is doomed to fail. She enumerates several problems with Sprint’s offering and argues that it could end up being like EarthLink’s failed muni Wi-Fi strategy:
    

• Sprint’s prices are not low enough, speeds not fast enough to entice people away from their DSL subscriptions;
• very few devices that have a WiMAX chip so why would people rush out and buy the service;
• not available in a lot of places;
• even if Sprint has a $10 day pass, you still have to buy a $60 WiMAX card.

    
I think it’s hard to predict so early in the game whether Sprint will succeed. But for me, there are several features that Sprint’s WiMAX service MUST have in order for me to run out and get it:
       

• flat fee monthly price of $30 or less
• no long contracts: I can cancel any time
• roaming agreements with other WiMAX operators around the world so that when I go to Amsterdam for example, I can simply use the WorldMax network without paying extra (this is something the Wi-Fi hotspot operators like T-Mobile do not have because even if you have a T-Mobile hotspot subscription, you have to pay extra to use their T-Mobile hotspots overseas)
• speeds between 2 Mbps and 10 Mbps (comparable to what you get today in Wi-Fi hotspots)
• ability to use the network even in a moving vehicle such as a tram

   
The most important for me are the flat fee, cancellable at any time, and roaming features — especially the roaming. This last one will save me a lot of money especially on phone calls, which I could do on Skype on a WiMAX network.

What will make WiMAX a must-have for me | MuniWireless

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