A cousin of mine, in a excessively mountainous region of Italy, was telling me that their WiMAX connection is wonderful, no matter where you are ( except shopping centers, but enough business' have WiFi in there).

Yes, sometime, WinMax users can use other wifi software (wifi hopper) as a wifi connection manager.

A former operator has bad things to say about something they couldn't get to work right. Sour grapes much?

commsday=doomsday?

We have speednetllc.com in Michigan and they don't seem to be having any trouble with business.

Some of our staff are using WiMax in Anchorage, and it works remarkably well for them. Perhaps the 'disaster' line could be explained by a story that Mr. Buzz CEO just aquired some large quantities of copper.

@faabshaam: Of course it works well in Italy. Europe's been way ahead of us in wireless for a long time. So it's no surprise that WiMAX would be doing well there.

@BostonPimpDaddy: that makes no sense. if youve got the same hardware and standards, its not like some magic aspect of the italian atmosphere or geography, or the density of their walls, is different from the states.

@BostonPimpDaddy: You do realize that most of the cellphone towers that are used in the united states are french manufactured if not most of the chips and specifications are made by Europeans.
Also i dont see wimax being lifechanging at first. Maybe in those few places where you do get wimax you'll feel like you're on top of the world because seriously who wouldn't enjoy getting a full page in mili-seconds onto your phone. Considering the fastest wimax can go is 70mbps i'd love to see sprint flourish with their wimax service but i dont see wimax taking off fast especially if its going to be shakey at first with sprint's customer service staff that sucks bolas.

@red: @SneakerFiend:

My point was here in the US the telecommunications companies have a huge stranglehold on advancing and they seem to be anti-customer.

Building standards can affect what technology is useful. For example the companies that attempted to use 802.11 for municipal wifi found out the hard way that the wire mesh used for stucco (which is popular in Southern California) was near perfect for blocking the signal. Many newer homes in other parts of the country have foil lined insulation, which also blocks signals.

Sorry to be naive but what the hell is WiMax?

emmm... you forgot the part about them using the 3.5 ghz fixed version of WiMax... Sprint is using the 2.5 ghz mobile version of WiMax that does not have these issues.

[www.dslreports.com]

Stupid media, never reporting the important details.

@Sihanouk: Unless the municipal wi-fi used vesions of 802.11 OTHER than b & g, I think you're relying on bad info, because I have NO problem getting the wi-fi signal outside of my stucco home that is being transmitted from inside. That mesh does NOT form a Faraday cage (or we would have problems getting commercial radio and TV signals).